learning to breathe

November 2025

duration: learning to breathe occurred daily over one month as a performance research project with Seaweed.

location: Sørvær, Norway (2025)

Developed during DEEP TIME: Art & Ecology in the Arctic Archipelago artist residency with Creative Body Institute.

materials: kelp, snow, rock, ice, breath

In the arctic chill a cradle of kelp ebbs and flows with the rising tide, offering shelter and oxygen. One exhale stretches bulbous strands towards salt and snowcapped glaciers, one inhale curls fronds into curves of algae and earth.

Here, cocoon-like
limbs entangled
We learn how to breathe.

Mouth, Gill, Frond
time is clocked by rocks wearing wrinkles of Sea -

bodies, fleeting moments,

held in liquid limbo - hibernating to nourish a presence I want to hold onto and I cannot hold

temperature choreographs the duration of this dance, water licks ears, fills nostrils, the gulp and lap a sound score interrupted by soft ripples of salty tears meeting the salt of Sea.

how to leave? feeling between wet slime of kelp skin and soft tissue tracing my edges

Setting Sun brings blue Heron gliding overhead singing “it is enough now”
Delicate cacophony
Wordless whisper
breath becoming wind becoming snowfall

Winter entices decay yet nothing will end here
Not the edge of my body or yours
but we do have edges
maybe I am learning to soften them with the dense buffer of your tendrils - your gaseous bladders stretching toward Sun
one breath
inhale
exhale
an invitation to an infinite dance where everything we might say is as legible as air -
as legible as a body learning how to breathe