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Every Other Breath I Take

Performance by Loreto Valenzuela
Presented at the vernissage of The Water That Bears the Boat (solo exhibition by Steph Huang)
Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, E-Werk Freiburg — 1 February 2024
Music: Bérengère (tanpura) & Neal Koga (rubab)


This performance unfolds as an intimate response to the exhibition’s elemental theme.
Every Other Breath I Take arises from a tension between containment and release — between the body’s need for air and the water’s power to both cradle and consume.

Within the sounds of tanpura and rubab, the performer searches for breath along the surface of the water: a fragile equilibrium between surrender and endurance. The piece reflects on how power circulates through the most subtle gestures — the inhale, the exhale, the pause — and how breathing itself becomes an act of resistance within visible and invisible currents.

In dialogue with the exhibition The Water That Bears the Boat, Valenzuela’s performance investigates the paradox of support and submersion, questioning how we survive inside the very forces that hold us. Through this delicate choreography of breath, body, and sound, the artist transforms vulnerability into agency — finding strength in the act of staying afloat.

Dedicated to  my late son Arian.