BREATH OF A STONE
30 MINS DIGITAL FILM
Accompanied by drawings and performance by Ana Paxeco, words by Margaret Leppard.
2024
Commissioned as part of the European-wide project The Weight of Air, funded by The Big Green and supported by the ONG Sciaena.
Film Synopsis
Taking its name from accompanying texts by poet Margaret Leppard, Breath of a Stone uses the unique landscapes of the Algarve to tell a story of elemental interconnections and sensorial conversations. The remains of trees burnt in wildfires form the shapes of the rocks, waters and plants of the coast; winds blasting across the red cliffs mingle with the breath of a wild keening spirit; a pink chimaera tastes the earth amongst the ancient remains of sea creatures and human bones. Elisabetta Antonucci’s film, and Ana Paxeco’s drawings and performances, describe our ecologically disturbed world through the metaphor of personal time (breath) and impersonal time (the wind). We are asked to let go of our political sense of climate change and instead feel our symbioses with the living and the non-living. This is a space to experience the large and small stories of reproduction, consumption, sexuality, communication and death that define our experience of the struggle for ecological harmony.
The making of Breath of a Stone
I collaborate with performer Ana Paxeco to explore our symbiotic relationship with the landscape, early with the suburban areas of River Tejo Estuary (projects Parallel Cycles, Here), and in this project with the mass tourism coast of the Algarve, increasingly affected by devastating wildfires. Our creative process combines a slow and intimate work of assimilation and connection with the landscape, improvised performances, meditative filming, and drawing. In March 2024 we began exploring and documenting the landscape of the South Portugal coast. Over the period we created characters and a visual and performative language for the project. This self-organised residency was held in conversation with the local ONG Sciaena, dedicated to ocean protection, and the cultural association LAC, witnesses of the recent wildfires and massive landscape transformations. Our informal conversations activated the work. Poet Margaret Leppard accompanied our experiences and wrote a set of texts, helping to shape the themes of the piece.
Research materials
Strong inspirations are the ecosexuals manifesto by artists Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens and the concept of INTERBEING of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. This concept has profound implications for how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Nothing exists in isolation, and everything is interconnected. All phenomena and entities are linked together through a vast and intricate web of interrelationships. This interconnectedness means that the well-being and existence of one thing are dependent on the well-being and existence of everything else. In my films, I would like to encourage a shift from a view of separate and independent entities to a more holistic understanding of reality. When we see ourselves as part of the interconnected web of life, we are encouraged to act with compassion, understanding, and responsibility towards all living beings and the environment.
“We are the ecosexuals. The earth is our lover. We are madly, passionately, and fiercely in love, we are grateful for this relationship each and every day. In order to create more mutual and sustainable relationship with the Earth, we collaborate with nature. We treat the Earth with kindness, respect and affection. (…) We make love with the Earth through our senses. We celebrate our E-spots. We are very dirty.” Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens
“The notions of small and large do not exist here. (…) When we look deeply at a flower, we can see the whole cosmos contained in it. One petal is the whole of the flower and the whole of the universe.” “No man can be considered an island, but rather his interbeing is shared with the plants and animals he eats, the people who make his clothes and food, the people who populate his home, country and the very world he perceives, the insects that pollinate the trees that yeild his fruit, shade him from the sun, and provide lumber for his house.” Thich Nhat Hanh
Film Stills:
Ana Paxeco’s characters and performances
The film activates and synesthetically blends all its spectator's senses. In developing a pink character we sought a creature that would embody our sensations in the landscape. With an awareness that our human presence deteriorates the places that we love so deeply, we envisioned an ideal, sensual, hybrid creature; one who can breathe with their skin like an amphibian, produce oxygen like a plant, protect the exposed rocks like a tree; a creature who connects and carries messages like a fungus; a queer being who can clean, repair, fertilise, and nourish the soil; a mythological chimaera who communicates and empathises with all non-human beings; a hypersensitive being, experiencing pleasure through these intense interconnections.
The second character created for Ana, a black witch/wind creature, moves in a forest, eight months after a wildfire. The witch follows the job of destruction, burning, shredding, and preparing the land for next year’s growth. They have no morality, and don’t care if the wildfire is “natural” or “man-made”. The witch is our determination to be part of the alchemic process of transformation. We collected in the burned forest a quantity of charcoal, that Ana uses to draw. We developed a further series of performances, reflecting on our human creative potential and responsibility.
Film installation and exhibition at Marmotto Festival, Faro 2024:
Exhibition website:
www.orsorosa.com/breath-of-a-stone
The website contains Margaret’s texts, plenty of backstage images, Ana’s drawings and all the film credits.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Filming “Breath of a Stone”