Date: Sep 08, 2010 - Sep 20, 2010
OpeningL: Sep 08, 2010 16:00 
Venue: FourZero Art Space
Curator:  Li Zhenhua
Artist : Eckermann Sylvia & Nestler Gerald
Organizor:  FourZero Art Space 

The idea for Breathe My Air developed out of our experience as Europeans traveling through China: When conversations failed because of a lack of language or understanding not all of them simply ended; some shifted into a form of communication beyond words that became almost physically tangible; a kind of ‘invisible sculpture’ of non-communication emerged…

Cultural as well as social, economic and political differences render profound understanding difficult. However, they open new approaches, as we are forced to take a different look at each other. In the common world that is emerging today it is these invisible sculptures between words, notions, traditions or other cultural frameworks that hold the promise of a communality of individuals beyond nationalities or other superstructures.

Starting from this idea of exchange and its dissolution into psycho-spatial in-betweens we set out to contextualize the territories of the selves and the borders, crossings and translations that appear when we meet. We invited people from a wider field of art in China and Europe who had experienced the „other“ and interviewed them on their personal experiences as well as their thoughts as regards the ‘other’ culture. We added to this personal stance a more conceptual and defining approach by focusing on three notions: Progress. Change. Utopia.

The terms progress, change, and Utopia still reflect powerful and urgent but currently fractured meanings in the West, as can be understood from the statements of the European participants. How do the Chinese participants—who also deal with the forming and translating of ideas and visions—relate to them? What is their impact on Chinese society in a global context today? And what are the strands that go beyond fortified generalizations of pre-defined cultures allowing for an engendering of multifaceted and progressive encounters of individuals and a sculpting of communalities?

In Breathe My Air, personal experience as well as concepts and knowledge from West and East come together and form what we call a “paradoxical conversation”: The shared thoughts emerge in an artistic setting without a real meeting between the participants. The setting of the 3-channel-video presentation combines the statements of the participants as well as related footage, which visually translate the mutual communication and the subtle, floating conditions in-between cultures, societies, individuals and the production of minds.

The statements and images are the artists’ material out of which they develop their work turning the invisible sculptures of non-communication into more palpable contexts for further conversations.