12 August - 10 September, 2024 ~ 'And then I will be quiet, so I can hear your blowin’ critically reflects on the idea of the solo (show) and breathing for the second iteration of SNAPSHOTS ~ *Solo: done by one person alone; unaccompanied ~ *Solo: a piece or passage of vocal or instrumental music for one performer.........Inspired from the knowledge transmitted by the seed of the Safou, a very important pear/plum in many African cultures, the non exhibition, brought forth by Aude Christel Mgba and Soñ Gweha, attempts to serve as a space for breathing.
Even in a choir, a solo has its sense only in a group of people who are either silent or humming. Although most able bodies can claim to come to the world with a heart and a pair of lungs, we want to acknowledge that breathing, or blowing, as Soñ likes to say, is a collective practice. Through this project our offering is to think of the impossibility to gather and come together without our reliance on collective breathing. Regardless of any geography we are located in, we share the same air and so as in the line of Chinua’s Achebe thoughts, our lives become contingent to each other.
This artistic/spatial proposition aims to create a space of solace, joy and continuous organizing. It is an attempt to facilitate space of gratitude for all the people who fought and resisted before us to keep breathing. It is a space to remember those who left too soon, a space to share our breath with those in our lineages, our communities of affinities, our ancestral and QTBIPOC teachers and caregivers who have tried and spread their powers through time (in the past, the present, and for the future) bearing with a lot of difficulties and grace, the violence of this world.
Through a program of offerings, taking place each weekend for the duration of the show, Aude Christel Mgba and Soñ Gweha conduct the solo as collaboration, as a breathing together, a sharing of air. Conversing, singing, dancing, eating together are practices rooted in attentive listening to each other .
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