Breathe

« When you take a breath, you touch a part of the planet, with the inside of your body »

Tor Norretranders

Air is our smallest common integror. She, the planet earth, them, the humans, them, the animals, she, the water, us, the vegetation, and all other constituants of the biosfere, we are all reduced to our vital addiction to air and its power of life and destruction.

I’m a plant. I stand on my human’s desk, I stare at her and I think. I’ve got plenty of time for that ! Isn’t it funny how simply air flows from her to me ? She breaths, takes my oxygene, gives me CO2. Inspire, expire, inspire, expire, inspire, … I don’t think my human realizes until which extend she is sharing this air. How dare she appropriate it? We are all particles, breathing finer particles to live and later disappear and merge with other particles.

Donna Haraway, in her Tentacular thinking theory, talks about this movement. She defines every human and non-human actor in the biosfere as wayferers. They passively follow a flow in the tight network, the tentacles of the chtulucene.

I can very much relate to this theory as I am, myself, a spider plant. My numerous leaves own the special capacity of reducing indoor air pollution in the form of formaldehyde. I extend my tentacles, capture and release my particles. It is as a very small difference that I make in my world but I’m proud of it. Don’t misinterpret it, sometimes it’s hard ! I see my leaves loosing their bright colors, I have difficulties standing straight and in those moments, I start thinking about destruction… Maybe soon, my particles will belong somewhere else.

« In this Anthropocene age; the era in which man has become one of the most important factors influencing the biological, geological and atmospheric processes on Earth, air is an essential good to protect and promote the development of green technologies. »

breath.austria collective

In the following weeks, through some readings on this vaste subject, I will try to think deeper, understand my position in this flow of particles, in this anthropocene age where destruction is so central.

Romane Nanchen’s spider plant

Illustration: Matt Willey. Poster produced to raise awareness of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

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