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The transparent, glass gallery doors of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at ɫ��ɫ act as a portal to another world where an echoing, ambient sound can be heard in the distance.  

This world is dimly lit and guarded by two large human-like figures, their long hair made of gray and black fibers, dressed in what might be space suits of the future or the casualwear of an alien species, fused together with colorful yarn. 

“These spaces, you might feel like it’s a real space, but it’s actually a dream space,” artist and ɫ��ɫ Professor Margaret Laurena Kemp said. “Not where you’re told facts but where you’re invited to engage with images, engage sounds and see what comes up for you.” 

The new exhibit, Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice, showcases art that combines ideas of both climate change and social justice through connection, contamination, catastrophe and hope. Three ɫ��ɫ scholars toured the gallery and talked about how these works connect to their own work and the broader world. 

Learning how to breathe 

Individuals dance across a beach, at times disembodied, each contained in their own vertical video — hands clasped behind their back, feet sinking into wet sand, a full body in the distance reaching either toward the ground or sky.   

Standing among the 18-channel video installation by Jin-me Yoon called Turning Time (Pacific Flyways), 2022, Kemp, chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, mimicked the sound of those feet squishing into the sand on the screen.  

“It’s really haptic — this one you can actually hear. You can hear the breeze, you can hear the feet,” she said. “The body is moving and, again, you can hear it: quish, qeesh.” 

The many images of feet reminded Kemp of .  

“This one I love because I work with feet all the time — quite honestly, in my own work, hundreds of images of feet,” Kemp said.  

The work she is referencing depicts seemingly disembodied feet dangling — her feet, black feet, dancing or are they hanging? 

Most of the time, she said, because the feet are black, both feet are off the ground and near some trees, people will assume the worst. 

“They’re making up all kinds of stories when, in fact, it is joy,” she said. “Now a lot of people are experiencing brown and black as just a place of pain and not remembering that these are dancing feet also.” 

Kemp’s work questions how systems of scientific and social engineering manipulate voice, breath, flesh, communities and the natural world. She incorporated the Breath(e) exhibit into her course “Page, Pen, Image — Performance, Black World Literature” (AAS 152) offered this fall. 

Her goal is to engage students both from a research perspective and a creative one. It begins with breathwork. 

Breath(e) curators Glenn Kaino and Mika Yoshitake conceived of the exhibit in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and during America’s racial reckoning when the safety of breathing was in question. 

By using canonical Black literature and visual art, Kemp’s students will learn and reflect on the relationship between climate change and social justice, primarily through the lens of the Black experience. A musical soundscape incorporating their responses will be added to the exhibit via a QR code. Students will also create original dances inspired by critical reading and viewing of the artwork in Breath(e), which will culminate in a . 

“Most of the students are not actors and breathwork helps them to access bodies and emotional life,” Kemp said. “In this class, most students have commented that the breathwork helps them to feel grounded. The work offers a respite from the challenges of being a student in these challenging socio-political times.” 

To read more about the reflections of a sociologist — Professor Jacob Hibel, and an earth and planetary sciences doctoral student, read the by Maria Sestito, Alex Russell and Greg Watry on the College of Letters and Science website. 

is organized by the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. It was part of , a collaborative arts event across Southern California organized by Getty, and has since traveled to the Moody Center for Arts at Rice University and now the .