When do I breathe? by artist Lauren Brincat is a public performance shaping new paths through the streets of Randwick, connecting communities in collaborative action.
Connecting three sites of activation across UNSW Kensington and the hospital precinct, the performance will move through Randwick at sunset into twilight. Timed at the intersection between the end of a working day and the beginning of a working night, it brings together local communities that are often separated by different shifts and daily rhythms.
Led by a group of dancers and held together with members of the NSW Collegium Musicum Choir and NIDA students and alumni, the performance will guide audiences on a journey of orchestrated harmonies. The artwork’s title, When do I breathe?, is inspired by the in-between breaths of the choir, and the composition reflects these sounds, sighs, pauses, breaks, rests, and moments of gathering before action.
Movement and song will animate a series of fabric sculptures, including a 100m, handwoven cotton gauze, providing a connective thread between the performers and the broader community. The sculptures will also feature elements inspired by forms of nonverbal communication, such as silk tell-tales—to mark the way the wind blows—or knot tying—an ancient form of storing information.
When do I breathe? is the result of a year-long engagement with local communities by the artist, offering an artistic response to the value of care in our society. A collective action as a form of resistance, the work aims to empower the community to come together and reclaim public space.
ARTWORK CREDITS:
Lead artist: Lauren Brincat
Choreographer: Charmene Yap
Composer: Evelyn Ida Morris
UNSW Choral Director: Sonia Maddock
Dancers: Jasmin Lancaster, Loulou Mitsis, Koko Mukaai, Angus Onley and Sam Osborn
Actors: Este Breytenbach, Jessica Carter, Lewis Defina, Lucy Dunning, Lillianne Lord, Connor Reilly, and Keenan Walker
Choir: UNSW Collegium Musicum Choir
Percussionist: Chloe Kim
Studio Producer: Sophie Willison
Studio Fabricator: Lisa Dwyer
Hat Fabricator: Bronwyn Shooks Millinery
Design: Studio Libro
Cinematographer: Gotaro Uematsu
Photographer: Zan Wimberley
Co-curators: Sophie Forbat and Zoe Theodore
This initiative is funded by Transport for NSW’s Safer Cities program, which is investing $30 million over two years to help improve perceptions of safety in our cities and towns, particularly for women, girls and gender diverse people.
Proudly funded by the NSW Government in association with Transport for NSW and Create NSW.
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For visitors travelling to the Randwick Health & Innovation Precinct, Lauren Brincat’s sunset performance can be easily accessed via Light Rail. Scientia lawn is nearby the UNSW stop on the L2 Randwick Line or via a short walk from the NIDA stop on the Kensington Line.
Please note that this will be videoed, and by registering, you give permission to be filmed as part of an artwork and documentation, as well as digital communications related to the project.
Ahead of the event, you will receive correspondance advising of the route through both campuses.
To keep up to date with future arts and culture programming in the Precinct, including the upcoming project Lunar Sway by Rochelle Haley, please subscribe to our mailing list.
Lauren Brincat (Western Sydney, Australia 1980) works with performance, video, installation and sculpture to explore movement, music, and rhythm. She often creates site responsive work that probes historical ruptures and failures of language, integrating local communities while exploring non-verbal modes of expression through the use of sound sculptures and performance instruments.
In Brincat’s videos, she often performs in relative solitude. In such works, she pushes her physical and cognitive limits, following rule-based actions. Her ‘walking pieces’ occur in vastly different contexts, from empty fields, to busy urban sites, and the ocean. Other video works take the form of documented and often repetitive actions. Collaboration is an important part of Brincat’s practice; featuring percussionists, architects, scientists, choreographers, equestrian riders and indigenous horse whisperers. Her use of fabric is intended to symbolize social cohesion, akin to a metaphorical social fabric, she experiments with different ways it interacts with body, space, and gender.
