Everything brings us back to the body

“Everything brings us back to the body”, writes Achille Mbembe in his 2020 essay The Universal Right to Breathe, a response to the first COVID lockdowns. That same year, Ehsan Hemat began the initial research for this work, which explores the physical potential of an 18-kilogram brass sheet. Drawing inspiration from the poetry of Rumi and Gaia theory, Hemat experiments with reflection and echo to create a duet between the human and the non-human, engaging them as equal partners.

The performance unfolds as a dialogue between the body and the core of the Earth, using movement, sound, and voice to explore both intimacy and resistance. Beneath the striking imagery lies a confrontation with histories of exploitation, ecological degradation and the systemic denial of a universal right to breathe.