Deru’s previous record, 1979, dealt with individual human emotions. His most recent project, Torn In Two, zooms out and deals with human existence as a whole. It explores themes of frustration, dissociation, and anger—but from a broader vantage point that incorporates topics like acceptance, beauty and tranquility.

Torn In Two includes a series of accompanying films that magnify the project’s themes, with effigies that absorb and reflect the human condition. The figures burn, they bleed, they hold their young, and they become swallowed by the ocean. Humans are absent in this picture of a world independent of us, without us—at crossroads.

This project was made possible through a sponsored partnership with Apple Music.