L'air pour l'airChicagoUSA

With the abundant plant life of the Garfield Park Conservatory venue as inspiration, we worked together with Prvački to create an ensemble of air-filtering mesh enclosures. Designed to clear the air through breathing, these enclosures also highlight awareness of the most familiar of spaces, personal space. An ensemble of flute, trombone, saxophone and vocals from the Chicago Sinfonietta wear the part-mask, part-shelter structures – all instruments that require air to produce music.

Performing an original composition by Veronika Krausas, De Aere (concerning the air), the musicians “clean the air that produces the music”, their roving forms evocative of the exchange of air between plants and human inhabitants. The installation and performance encourage its viewers to meditate upon the complex notions such as the relationship between purity and pollution, and the distinctions between self, body, objects, and nature.