Breath Pieces

Camila Sposati, a Brazilian artist and researcher, approaches art with an experimental and interdisciplinary practice. She challenges various assumptions and categories that have shaped Western thought, including anthropocentrism, linear time, and the division between culture and nature. Breath Pieces, the artist’s first comprehensive solo exhibition in Germany, creates a unique experiential space that vibrates throughout the city of Stuttgart and builds on her artistic exploration over the past twenty years. The exhibition is a bodily experience of changing perspectives in three acts: at ifa Gallery, at Theatre of the Long Now at Wagenhallen, and at Theater Rampe.

The concept of Amerindian perspectivism stands for the cosmology of indigenous communities in the Amazon region in Brazil, and it comprises a multiplicity of realities – of animals, plants, and the Earth itself, all of which are closely interwoven with humankind. This way of experiencing the world and connecting with it is central to the artist’s project in Stuttgart. Sposati interprets perspectivism as a way of understanding the world as multiple subjectivities rather than a singular and objective reality, emphasising the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings. In doing so, she highlights the importance of exchange between and the coexistence of plural temporalities, and stresses the mutual shaping of the human and nonhuman worlds.

Sposati's attention to the complexity of life in its interconnectedness vibrates from the energy centre within the exhibition at ifa Gallery to outside locations in Stuttgart. The artist engages and confronts herself with new contexts – with 'the other' and 'the unknown', which she permits to affect and transform her own self. For Sposati, Stuttgart is such an unknown territory that has its own geography and geology, social and political strata, as well as human and nonhuman inhabitants who have been specifically formed through migration.

This project is the result of a process of negotiation and conversation – the latter in the etymological sense of the word: living and acting together. The first act, a prelude to the exhibition at the Theatre of the Long Now at Wagenhallen, started on 1 April 2023. Tubes have been drilled into the ground in Stuttgart and samples habe been taken which has then metamorphose into earthen musical instruments to be filled with breath and played for and listened to by the earth. In the ifa Gallery, in the second act, several generations of these instruments are in conversation with themselves and the visitors.

The third act at Theater Rampe expands the process of communication and exchange. Sposati's clay instruments serve as tools and communicators, facilitating a breath-guided dialogue between individuals from the heterogeneous strata of Stuttgart. Through this interactive experience, participants are invited and inspired to explore the concept of 'the other' in their own lives and neighbourhoods, leading to a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them.

The Breath Pieces that Sposati creates embrace complexity, multiplicity, and contingency, encouraging us to consider new ways of comprehending the world and our place within it. By envisioning alternative futures, we are compelled to work towards achieving them. Through her art, Sposati invites us to broaden our perspectives, recognise the interconnectedness of all beings, and strive for a new understanding.