Pearlyn Lii is an artist, designer, and creative director from Hong Kong whose work examines narratives about identity through performances and installations.
REVERB is A GENETIC OPERA, with each performance being an intimate, one-on-one experience between opera singer Ān the Guide, and an invited participant dubbed Person X. Ān performs live a personalized soundscape scored from the participant’s DNA. More specifically, mitochondrial DNA, which uniquely retains genetic material that is passed only through maternal lineage. Ān guides Person X through their matrilineal line—contemporary to the beginning of time—through notes of magical realism to connect them to their feminine origins.
Reverb is also a series of shorts that feature people and their matrilineal stories. we collaborated with pearlyn on the location and styling for the first episode of the series, featuring curator Michelle Millar Fisher. Michelle’s mitochondrial DNA was sequenced and transposed into an aria, and Soprano Emma Goldberg Liu performed her genetic aria to her in our home that represents the one she grew up in with her mother.
read more about the project
![]()
REVERB is A GENETIC OPERA, with each performance being an intimate, one-on-one experience between opera singer Ān the Guide, and an invited participant dubbed Person X. Ān performs live a personalized soundscape scored from the participant’s DNA. More specifically, mitochondrial DNA, which uniquely retains genetic material that is passed only through maternal lineage. Ān guides Person X through their matrilineal line—contemporary to the beginning of time—through notes of magical realism to connect them to their feminine origins.
Reverb is also a series of shorts that feature people and their matrilineal stories. we collaborated with pearlyn on the location and styling for the first episode of the series, featuring curator Michelle Millar Fisher. Michelle’s mitochondrial DNA was sequenced and transposed into an aria, and Soprano Emma Goldberg Liu performed her genetic aria to her in our home that represents the one she grew up in with her mother.
read more about the project
