Breathing is the basis of human life, a practice our bodies do without asking it to. Yet, it can also be consciously practiced for healing, celebration, and sound, a practice long held by South Africa’s indigenous communities. Within the film, a Brother With Perfect Timing, Abdulla Ibrahim demonstrates the method of Circular Breathing, a rhythmic dance of air and soul that echoes the cadence of South Africa’s journey to liberation. Breathing through jazz becomes a spiritual practice for Ibrahim during apartheid, connecting him back to the land his ancestors once freely breathed.
The qualities that define a space to breathe are not necessarily physical but instead conjure a feeling of freedom, calmness, and liberation. As Ibrahim breathes songs of liberation in the recording studio he is transported to a place of memory. How could a place to breathe like a recording booth capture sound and amplify it, reverberating the histories of places hidden?
It seems impossible in the beat of New York City to find a place to breathe, but today many walk through Central Park for that very reason. Built in 1858, the park was described as the “Lungs of the City” by its designer Frederick Law Olmsted. The land that is now claimed for the public purpose of breathing, was home to the first and largest free black community in New York, Seneca Village. This autonomous black community thrived on the land establishing a home and a place to breathe safely. Exiled from their homes for the master plan of the park, their memory has practically been erased. The project studies the complex history public parks have established themselves on and therefore the deceptive claim that these spaces are for “all”.
Through the technique of pleating, iterating from the qualities of acoustic sound booths, and dying from the herbs that once grew among those of Seneca Village, this tectonic becomes a vessel to breathe life back into a site of erasure and hold knowledge of ancestral history.
