Sharing the Same Breath brings together nine artists who consider human, nonhuman, and interspecies forms of kinship and connectivity in their work. The exhibition is on view through April 21, 2024, at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.
The centerpiece of the show is Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger’s large fabric she-wolf sculpture, “Each/Other”. The artists sewed hundreds of embroidered bandanas, sent to them from around the globe, onto a wolf form. For Watt and Luger, the crowdsourced work connotes affinity among people and between species.
Dyani White Hawk’s I Am Your Relative, a series of life-size photographs of Indigenous women, highlights interhuman kinship. The work reflects Očeti Šakowin (L/N/Dakota) tribal beliefs and understandings of mitakuye oyasin (all my relations). Statements on the women’s shirts are meant to humanize and honor Indigenous women while combating fantasies and stereotypes that contribute to violence against this population.
William Wegman and Emilie Louise Gossiaux explore relationships between humans and animals. Wegman’s short videos from the early 1970s convey cross-species communication and illustrate the bond between the artist and his Weimaraner, Man Ray. Gossiaux’s sculptures and drawings reflect her experiences as a disabled person and celebrate the deep interdependency she has with her guide dog, London.
Nina Katchadourian and Juan William Chávez engage nonhuman entities as partners in the creative act. Katchadourian’s interactions with arachnids in her Mended Spiderweb series are intended to reinforce the impact of human intrusion and reflect the ingenuity of more-than-human creatures, while Chávez uses unconventional forms of beekeeping and agriculture to address social and environmental issues. His mixed-media installation, inspired by Andean rituals, aims to frame beekeeping as a ceremonial and political act.
The sentience and agency of the natural world connect the work of David Freid and Lindsey French. Freid’s short film “The River is Me” documents the 2017 legal recognition of New Zealand’s Whanganui River as a person, illuminating how “personhood” can transcend the human species and change our relationship with the natural world. French’s Phytovision series is an experiment that hopes to destabilize the primacy of human vision and senses. She presents a plant-centric view of the world through videos tailored for plant perception and poetry written in collaboration with trees.
Sharing the Same Breath is on view through April 21, 2024, at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. Admission is free.
For more information, visit jmkac.org.
