Faculty of Art

Criticism and Curatorial Practice

Nina Ankisetty

Breathing Piece

Breath, an everyday, automatic bodily process that sustains life is brought to the forefront and controlled through performance. Using box-breathing, a breathing technique meant to calm the nervous system, as a jumping-off point, my performance, Breathing Piece, will follow this controlled method of breathing for a long period of time, much longer than is intended for the technique. As a result of repeating this regimented form of breathing, my body becomes tense, dizzy, and overheat. This reverses the therapeutic intention of box-breathing, demonstrating how systems of control may have good intentions but can have negative consequences. In my performance, I am seen needing to take breaks to rest my body or drink water, disrupting the continuous line drawing. The original performance is done in my studio, a private place, and documented through video, therefore brought into public space. This correlates with illustrating my breathing through lines, an internal and bodily action being exhibited to the public. This is inspired by Acconci's interest in the relationship between public and private spaces and his use of documentation to allow these spaces to converge (Frazer 37). Additionally, it is LeWitt's attention to the spacing of intervals that drew me to explore the rhythmic and repetitive bodily systems like breath and sleep. Inspired by Sol LeWitt's wall drawings, accompanying my breathing works will be the instructions I followed in my performances, as well as instructions for the viewers to follow. Even if they do not intentionally follow the instructions, they are still a part of the work through the action of their breathing.