Breath(E) in art at the hammer

“Breath(e): Towards Climate and Social Justice” is an immersive art exhibit at the Hammer Museum, premiering Sep 14 and closing on Jan 5, 2025. “Breath(e)” features a diverse set of creatives displaying their call to action on the climate crisis and social issues everywhere. The title correlates to breathing as a symbolic act of resistance and survival- opening eyes to racial inequity and withstanding the global health crisis.

Yoshimoto Nara is a beloved artist who usually portrays valuing individuality, rebellion, and imagination, through drawings of children. Nara’s statement painting is an homage to Greta Thunburg, a Swedish climate activist. One painting portrays a girl, likely a young Thunburg holding a sign saying, “School Strike for Climate” in Swedish. Famously, Thunberg protested by sitting outside the Riksdag, a Swedish government body, every day during school hours with a sign that read "Skolstrejk för klimatet" ("school strike for climate"), pleading for the Swedish government to reduce carbon emissions. Nara collaborated with several artists to portray issues of climate change, with an additional focus of the exhibit being moments that embodied 2020. 

These topics covered the epidemic COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, Asian hate crimes, and rights over Indigenous land. It’s especially emotional because it felt like the known world was ending for many, with a physical, and psychological lockdown. There is no denying a link between social and environmental justice. There is a burden on countless shoulders of climate tragedies.

The social issues are truly seen in Cannupa Hanksa Luger’s abstract sculptures of Indian chiefs with veins being shown; encapsulating the vulnerability of Indigenous people with the injustice they experience and the loss of territory today. Paintings such as Sandy Rodriguez’ “Plant Medicine #2”  showcase an extraordinary oasis, using contemporary geopolitics. Rodriguez used bioregional mapping, a technique of mapping that emphasizes natural landscapes over man-made environments. This piece also is inspired by the writings of people in Central Mexico after the Spanish conquest in 1519-21, which revealed just how much it devastated the native population. 

LaToya Ruby Fraziers’ photographs of people in environmental catastrophes. Her pictures portray the hardship that was the Flint water crisis.

This ties into how the pieces make one wonder which ones of speak for the agency of earth, trees, ocean, and air. Demonstrated in many different ways, such as balance and connection with the land through models for future generations, of the earth. These are models of land, and human bodies suffering the impact of anthropogenic violence. This ethereal exhibit is open until January 5, 2025. A very earthy and eye-opening experience awaits.