“We can't breathe.”°
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”°° 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.
° 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.
°° Term developed by architect and researcher Nerea Calvillo in “Aeropolis: Queering Air in Toxicpolluted Worlds”.
Written by Juliette Gaufreteau.
Coming from different geographical and cultural backgrounds, Doris Hardeman (BE/NL) and Natalia Dominguez (ES) have drawn on local resources in Clermont-Ferrand to experiment with new forms in the making. None of the displayed pieces are considered final works, but stages of experimentation that will continue to unfold and evolve through time. Their formal research has been enriched by their observations of local industry and architecture, whereas their materials come from local car scrapyards, recycling centres, second-hand shops and specialised industrial suppliers, among others. This local anchoring does not prevent them from considering more widely shared issues such as power dynamics, extractivism, and strategies for protecting and controlling bodies. The installations they unfold throughout the space of La Diode exude both great aesthetic sensitivity and a playful character, but also a certain violence, softened by the sensuality of the textures and colours used.
In a desire to explore new avenues of research and experiment with new materials, Natalia Domínguez seeks points of contact between devices, tools and bodies. The starting point for her research in Clermont-Ferrand is the often overlooked colonial history of the Michelin industry and the abusive working conditions on rubber plantations in the early 20th century. She focuses on how these silenced dynamics are reflected in the routines and techniques of the workers. She draws on their stories to re-examine the violent relationships that bind the bodies that govern and those that are governed. Knotting, observing, adjusting and repeating allow her to resonate with the painful experiences that underlie official history. An airbag emptied of its air is the only witness to a sudden impact, a breath cut short. Stories of oppression are not subjects but mediums: the traces of past brutality, experienced in the bodies, form the basis of a methodology for working with the material, revealing absences and the unthought. By repeating the gestures that structure laborious daily life, she searches for an image for the distant moment, a formula for a liberated practice.
Written by Isabelle Henrion & Juliette Gaufreteau.