Natalia Dominguez

“We can't breathe.”[1]
At the heart of Natalia Domínguez's installations, echoes a warning cry. Out of breath, suffocated, it struggles to be heard in a world where air is running out, where breathing is no longer a given. Air is conditioned. Conditioned by “progress,” ambitions for growth and development, extractivist logics, accompanied by their share of exploitation and oppression.

Because it is imperceptible to the naked eye, air is unthought. Its story is that of something invisible, free, omnipresent, natural, and vital. Its reality is rather that of a polluted common good, made toxic by human activities. Breathing is fraught with materialistic stakes, and the experience of air and its quality are subject to unequal economic and social circumstances. Unwilling to resign herself to disenchantment, Natalia Domínguez offers in her practice a perspective on breathing not as an unquestioned instinct but as a conscious act, a gesture capable of dilating preconceived ideas.

In her sculptural arrangements, a parachute canvas or a ventilation pipe, stripped of their sheer functionality, reveal the materiality of air, “de-in-visibilizing”[2] it. Sound pieces take part in the works, creating a sensitive and immersive landscape that plays with lacks, interstices, and discomforts. To the beat of inhalations, exhalations, and gasps, we then confront the challenges of an elusive reality, ready to hear the sighs of silenced voices.

[1] Slogan used during the Black Lives Matter protests following the asphyxiation deaths of Eric Garner (2014) and George Floyd (2020) at the hands of American police forces. 
[2] Term developed by architect and researcher Nerea Calvillo in “Aeropolis: Queering Air in Toxicpolluted Worlds”.

nataliadominguez.com

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