Breathe1
BREATHE_KAMINIA_VERTICAL_FINAL

Breathe

Site Specific Installation

Curated by: Efi Strousa

Sarantopoulos Flour-Mills

Athens, Greece, 2000

Deep within the ground there are caverns and tunnels and ways for the sacred energy to travel. Earth inhales and exhales just as we do; sacred life energy moves within her body as it does in ours.

Hopi Indians

Deep within the ground there are caverns and tunnels and ways for the sacred energy to travel. Earth inhales and exhales just as we do; sacred life energy moves within her body as it does in ours.

Hopi Indians

This installation was shown at an old warehouse in Athens, near the docks of Piraeus harbour. This is a very interesting, industrial area, which is a natural junction between the city and the sea.  Breathe develops a dialectic relation to the space.  The 500 square metre warehouse was left untouched, old and worn. Upon entering the installation’s space, one was enveloped by the scent of soil as one physically walked upon the rich layer of the reddish fertile earth that covered the entire space from wall to wall. At the centre, a round pool of light attracted the viewer to approach. The gentle but powerful esoteric sounds of breath and the subtle rhythmic movement of the earth itself furthered the magnetic pull on the viewer’s senses creating an active involvement, as all of the senses are evoked. At the installation’s centre, the inanimate earth was energized and given movement. The breathing motion “expanded” and energized the whole space. The sounds echoed those of the primal act of breathing.

Through this work, the artist seeks to motivate the synergy between the intellectual and the emotive realms thus evoking the physical recollection of the ‘memory-experience’ of a primeval relationship with the world.

Exhibitions:

 

Breathe & Water Section

Curated by: Efi Strousa

Sarantopoulos Flour-Mills

Athens, Greece, 2000

 

1st Bienal de Valencia 2001: Passions

Curated by: Achille Bonito Oliva

Main exhibition Boby and Sin

Valencia, Spain, 2001

 

Christie’s Contemporary

Curated by Elisavet Lyra

Athens, Greece, 2001

 

Part of the Collection of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens, Greece.

Acquired 2009, donated by Private Collector Mr. F. Bobolas

 

Photography: Dimitris Tanviskos

Videography: Marianna Oikonomou