A BREATHE OF AIR

  • Single-channel projection with audio
  • 3 minutes 40 seconds
  • Dimensions variable

 

In the video A Breathe of Air, a cloudy sky passes through the interior of Spain’s National Library. The clouds that pass through the hall gradually move, something that the artist argues should also happen in libraries, transforming them into constantly changing relational spaces. Like the ever-shifting clouds, like life itself, advancing onwards, as ought to be to the case with all things. If things move in a library, then that should be symptomatic that knowledge is also passing through it.Likewise, clouds are not new to Ampudia’s imaginary, having previously featured in Thinking Table (2004), or Clouds of Memory (2010; 2014), an action in which helium-filled clouds travelled the route of the camino to Santiago, compiling images that people uploaded from pendrives, a project that was also re- enacted recently at the Trienal no Alentejo.

Once again, a single gesture in another scenario proper to culture, as a rebuttal of a potentially static container of ideas, which should be energised and not just a mere time capsule…

Blanca de la Torre