in the breeze together (bil hawa sawa)

About

The Arabic expression bil hawa sawa translates literally as “in the air/breeze together” and idiomatically as “we’re all in the same boat.” It is a phrase that holds within it the possibility of solidarity but can also express a sense of resignation to forces seemingly beyond our control. The phrase can also occlude the fact that our individual circumstances—even or especially in crisis—are often not equivalent. In this performance, taking place within her current solo exhibition Only If, artist Annabel Daou invites participants to meditate on individual and collective senses of being and belonging, and to interrogate the tension and possibility within invocations of the “we.”

In anticipation of the performance, the gallery floor has been demarcated with lines of tape creating a series of spaces. Daou will occupy one of these spaces and spend the afternoon swaying in place. Participants are invited to choose their own space and sway at their own pace for however long they like. Together and individually, participants will negotiate the oscillating positions we take within ourselves and vis-a-vis the external world.

The performance draws its inspiration from elements in Daou’s exhibition, both physical and semantic. The shadow of the artist sways in the opening of her video Dog Days, on view in the gallery. Dandelions, which feature centrally in the video, move back and forth in the breeze before finally releasing themselves, self propelled outwards to propagate. The parachute-like seeds then sway slowly in the air before settling into the earth. The hand cut paper works in the show deal with the deconstruction of binaries and the push and pull of regret and possibility: if only/only if.

Please join us at any time over the course of the performance and stay/sway for however long you choose.
 

annabel daou’s work takes place at the intersection of writing, speech and non-verbal modes of communication. Her paper-based constructions, audio/video works and performances explore the expressive possibilities of ordinary language and reveal intimacies between individual and collective experience. Frequently, her works evoke moments of rupture, chaos, instability and misunderstanding but always with the tenuous possibility of repair. Daou was born and raised in Beirut and lives in New York. Her work has been shown at The National Museum of Beirut; The Park Avenue Armory, New York; KW, Berlin; The Drawing Room, London; and The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Public collections include Baltimore Museum of Art; The Menil Collection, Houston; The Brooklyn Museum of Art; The Vehbi Koç Foundation, Istanbul; the Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita; and The Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. In 2019-20, Daou was a Pollock-Krasner resident at ISCP. Recent solo exhibitions include DECLARATION at Ulrich Museum of Art in Wichita, Global Spotlight: Annabel Daou at Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington (formerly Arlington Arts Center) and Gods and Grifters at Conduit Gallery in Dallas.