Public invitation to participate in “Breathe” international art project!
BOORYAK team is happy to invite you to participate in “Breathe” art project by Florence Hoffmann, Luxembourg artist, sculptor and curator of Gare Art Festival, manager at International Association for Monumental Sculpture Events (A.I.E.S.M.).
Many of you remember Florence from our International Symposium in Bila Tserkva Ukraine and her sculpture dedicated to this city – “Mass instruction weapon”. Florence calls herself “the book artist” as she is using books as her main media developing the idea of spreading the knowledge and humanity throughout the world.
“Breathe” project started in September 2019 as an installation with red mannequins and “book masks”. The conceptual idea of the artwork is devoted to literature and knowledge as filters and possible protection against dimness and stupid beliefs. Florence was getting her ideas from inspirational readings, pollutating writings, ecological situations in big cities, news in the world (at that time: people in Hong-Kong not allowed to wearing masks when protesting, burning Amazon Forest, other "situations" in Latin America and in other parts of the world).
According to the critic by Mr. Fabrice Montebello, professor of the Arts Department at Lorraine University (France) in October 2019: “And here we arrive at these strange "gas books", as one paradoxically says, "gas masks". And seeing them in this startling vision of masks glued to the mouths of these models plunges us without mediation into the experience of the apocalypse. Red as blood and bald as women mowed at the Liberation by Resistance of the last hour, cancer patients, children of Chernobyl or the skulls shaved fanatics, but also as the confusion of genders, the tracking of hair and organic, the plasticization of bodies. […] This mask that is put on not to inhale gas but to continue breathing despite the gas. The apprehension, however, remains. The masks that protect us remind us that the danger is near. The children of the Blitz, the irradiated nuclear power plants, the war, the nuclear, the disaster. The gas is here. Sometimes the venom is also in the pen, and the poison is in the book. Yes, the air we breathe is loaded with the bad weather.”
Starting from December 2019 Florence transforms her project into the participative practice inviting people to take part in “Breathe” by making their own “book masks” and sending the photos to the artist uniting people all over the world with the idea of spreading the knowledge. Photos are being constantly published by the artist in the social media making the collection of portraits public.
And now with the global pandemic situation "Breathe" project took an additional meaning which of course, Florence could not foresee. The idea of FILTERING the information that we all have to face now: where lies the truth? Whom to believe since one can now find so many contradictory testimonies.
How to participate in “Breathe” project:
1. Make your own personal “book mask”.
Use white painted book covers and filters glued to the surface - you can draw filters if you can’t find the real ones or find another idea related to the concept of "filtering" information and knowledge. You can stick the elastics to the mask so it is convenient for you to wear the mask for the photo or just hold the “book mask” in front of your face.
2. Take photos "wearing" your “book mask”.
- Photo format: torso portraits (area from head down to the hips) either alone or in group, photos with kids are welcome!
- You can keep your “book mask” in your hands or over your head, or whatever inspiration you get regarding this concept within. Of course, with a certain range of "respectability" (no deviant pictures, no insults to fundamental respect and/or human rights, no messages of hatred or discrimination of any kind).
- Photos can be taken inside or outside preferably in front of a plain and/or clear background . No need to take pictures in Black and White, the artist will do necessary colour corrections.
3. Send your photos to:
breathebyflorencehoffmann@gmail.com
- Your email should have the following information: first and last name, date and place of photoshooting (example: Alex Petrov, Bila Tserkva, 10/04/2020).
- If you do not wish your name to be published, you can indicate either your initials or write "anonymous".
More information about “Breathe” project:
https://www.facebook.com/breathebyflorencehoffmann/
https://www.instagram.com/florence.hoffmann_bookartist/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/florence-hoffmann/
Disclaimer. By sending your photos to above mentioned email address people cannot claim for any retribution, their participation is benevolent and free of charges, and they agree for their pictures to being published by the artist on all types of media, either digital than paper, with no limit in time.