Soot Breath / Corpus Infinitum

For Glasgow International 2021, CCA has developed a new commission Soot Breath / Corpus Infinitum with artist Arjuna Neuman and philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva, comprising film, installation and a publication.

Following on from their collaborative films Serpent Rain, 2016 and 4 Waters, 2019, the new work continues their interest in reimagining knowledge and existence without the limits of European and Colonial constructions of the human.

Neuman and Ferreira da Silva study across disciplines, calling on quantum mechanics to polyrhythms, from Tarkovsky to Hype Williams, from heat to Anaximander, in order to speculate how to exist otherwise as humans in the world. Their new film explores the construction of subjectivity – how social subjects, identities and categories are formed and recreated in society – in particular, how these processes have been designed as sovereign and interior: independent from the body so to speak.

Soot Breath gathers a variety of examples where subjectivity is unbound from the mind alone, but rebound to the world. Following the element of earth through its many facets, groundings, afterlifes and forms, the film scales between the historical/cultural, the organic, the quantum and the cosmic. This research aims to question how structures of power (colonial, capital, cis-hetero patriarchal) perpetuate categorisation and difference to break material ties to other humans, more-than-humans and deeper implicated bonds with our planet and beyond. In particular, it will focus on how such an interior subjectivity has been exploited towards unending racial violence.

Emulating the content of the film, the exhibition space will also host a series of practices and projects which propose expansions upon categories of difference. Informed by a study group launched as part of Arika Episode 10 in 2019, the exhibition at CCA also becomes a starting point for an ongoing conversation about subjecthood, identity politics and representation in cultural practice.

Part of Glasgow International 2021.

Visiting Information

The Soot Breath film will begin at five past the hour, and run for 40 minutes.

Captioned screenings for the film are available at 12noon, 2pm & 4pm.

Headphones are available for the archive room, and will be sanitised regularly.

We no longer require advance bookings for this exhibition. Please note if you have already booked, your time slot will still be booked for you.

Masks should be worn by all visitors to the galleries, including when entering CCA and moving around in any public spaces, including toilets and shared communal areas.

A member of staff will control entrance to the gallery and maintain vigilant hygiene measures in the space, ensuring regular sanitising of door handles, and any surface areas. The gallery will be well ventilated throughout the day.

Interpretation materials will be single use only and are to be taken away.

Explore the online archive room for the exhibition on CCA Annex.