Vulnerability of Air in Contemporary Art

This invited essay is based on material originally published in Out of Breath: Vulnerability of Air and Contemporary Art (Minnesota University Press, 2022). Drawing on ethical approaches to air and an understanding of breath as an act of both individuality and commonality with others and environments, this essay considers the pervasive vulnerability of air through a range of art practices that uphold the necessity to attend to breathing. Air vulnerability is due to ecological pollution, but also to histories of air colonization and control, and atmospheres dominated by air inequality and oppression. The artistic practices considered in this essay critically engage with the vulnerability of air and the emotional charge of today’s atmospheres through collaborative approaches rooted in lived experience. Within this context, the breathing mask stands as a trope for the governability of breath and the bodies it affects. It also suggests the potential for resistance to claim the right to breathe.

• https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517913557...