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M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong. By donation, © Song Dong
Song Dong 宋冬
Breathing, Houhai, Back Sea 哈氣，後海
1996
This photograph depicts the artist lying down with his face slightly above a frozen lake. Long shadows of the surrounding trees are cast on the lake. This photograph is the second of two that documents Song Dong’s performance Breathing (1996) at Tiananmen Square and at Houhai, a lake close to Tiananmen. On New Year’s Eve, Song lay in the square in sub-zero temperatures and breathed on the ground for forty minutes. He repeated the act at Houhai. While his exhalation produced a thin sheet of ice at Tiananmen Square, a site of momentous political movements, the frozen Houhai Lake remained unchanged. The performance questions the impact an individual has in a political environment and in nature. The artist Yin Xiuzhen, Song’s wife and frequent collaborator, took the photographs. Breathing is one of several performances by Song that uses water as a medium to highlight the impermanent nature of human endeavour.
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