Ehsan Hemat

‘Everything brings us back to the body‘ (’Everything ultimately revolves around the body"), wrote Achille Mbembe in 2020 in his essay The Universal Right to Breathe, in response to the first corona shockdowns. That same year, Ehsan Hemat began making this performance. In it, he explores what the human body is capable of in collaboration with an 18-kilo copper plate.

Hemat draws inspiration from Rumi's poetry and Gaia theory. He uses these ideas to play with reflection and echo. The result is a performance in which man and object dance together as equals. But behind the beautiful images is a deeper message: a story about exploitation, damage to nature and the right to breathe freely.