Heavy Breathing is a series of experimental movement seminars designed by artists combining physical activity with group discussion on ideas related to their creative practice. Critical thinking often feels heady, abstract, and divorced from the body. How do conversations change when we are moving our bodies and out of breath? What new modes of thinking become possible?
Heavy Breathing began in 2015 as a summer series of weekly seminars sponsored by Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure Award. The series brought together over 25 artists, writers, and researchers to lead twelve consecutive weekend sessions exploring the possibilities of “critical somatics” – thinking with and as bodies.
In 2016 Heavy Breathing partnered with the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). Together we presented six monthly sessions from June – November, 2016, as well as a special event in Jan 2017 to celebrate the release of the Heavy Breathing Reader.
Since then we have been organizing artist-led events around the SF Bay Area and beyond, including the San Francisco Art Book Fair, Common Field Convening (LA), and the San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries. In 2018, Heavy Breathing A/V launched at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF), the Bangkok Biennial, and Meme Space (Taipei).
In 2019 we became the happy recipients of a second Alternative Exposure award, and launched our first Open-Call for projects to take place Fall 2019/Winter 2020.For information about our current line-up, please see our event listings.
Heavy Breathing is co-produced by artists Sophia Wang and Lisa Rybovich Crallé.