
A bout de souffle
2020/21 / Varying edition of 4 / Text in English & French (graphite & carbon pencil) / Archival inkjet printing on Dobbin Mill papers / Embedded mixed media / Wax paper, cotton swab & plastic bag
Breathless, a text about suffocating relationships, was written for a set of wrinkled skin-like papers, that I put aside because it included the phrase ‘I can’t breathe’ and that felt untouchable after Eric Garner’s murder by police in Staten Island, 2014.
In April 2020, our pandemic lives gave it new meaning and resonance so I resumed working on the book, writing, erasing and altering the text, and finally completing the copies, May 20, 2020. Or so I thought: with George Floyd’s murder on May 25th, again, that phrase held impossible trauma & burden. On May 29th I wrote and printed the colophon, asking myself “should I erase those words? --Breathing not breathing.”
In the year since Floyd’s death, I again re-worked the book with new imagery and words. I am still unsure. The text is presented as a manuscript or meditation in 2 languages, an echo and a violation that has been written like tattoos on these skin-like papers.







