Breathe—Manager Zhao’s Black Cab

Breathe Series

In a conscious act of naiveté, inanimate objects inhale and exhale. Mundane objects that occupy our daily life become alive and breathe in the air just like us. as human beings. (I have been making this series from 2005 until now. Initially, for the first three to five years, I made single breathing objects and each exhibition would contain one of these. In recent years, I have been building whole breathing scenes, which the audience can enter into. Mundane and inanimate objects that occupy our daily life are rendered in silicon and come alive, breathing subtly and realistically like humans. Sometimes, the objects are breathing so subtly that the audience does not even realise, they just have a sense that something unusual is happening around them. Once the viewers have noticed the breathing objects and they leave the room, they have the lingering realisation that the objects are continuing to breathe even when there is no one there to watch.

In the older pieces, the audience are in the majority and watching this single-object, but in the breathing scenes, the roles are reversed and it is almost as if the objects are observing the viewer.)

Breath – Finance Office The title of this work comes from the last paragraph of Henry Miller’s novel Black Spring: “But tonight I would like to think of one man, a lone individual, a man without name or country, a man whom I respect because he has absolutely nothing in common with you – MYSELF. Tonight I shall meditate upon that which I am.” This work is a deconstruction, reconstruction and disappearance of my work The Moon Landing Program. It shows that all will end in nihility.