'Brindavan' means the forest of vines and is a metaphor for the forest inside your body.
When you breathe in, you’re breathing the 'out-breath' of trees and plants , putting us in an intimate and almost tantric flow of breath with the natural world. The installation meditates on that connection by using Breath sensors designed by Saraswathi Subbaraman and Nelson Ramon. As you breathe, the installation on the wall breathes and glows with you, forcing you to watch your breath and take a moment to slow down.
In Hindu mythology Krishna, the god of love, lives in Brindavan (meaning forest of vines). Everytime you breathe in, he comes and lives inside your chest. The metaphor alludes that there are no external mythical landscapes, only internal. Love is breath and the beloved lives inside the forest of your lungs.
'Brindavan' is one project in a series that tries to find the links between the body, nature and intimacy. When in love, we give flowers to our lovers, have butterflies in our stomach when touched, every pebble or shell collected while together becomes more significant, more beautiful. And Nature responds too, the Wind caresses, the waves rise and fall and lap up against the shore, we are brushed by leaves and cradled by the earth.
Through 'Beloved', Shilo Shiv Suleman explores the hypothesis that perhaps the greater longing is to be united not just with the beloved, but with nature itself.
The installation became a performance piece as the artist sat in Padmasan and focused on her breath. Seeing a visual representation of an internal biological process acts as a mirror, allowing us to slow down. The LEDs in the installation would light up and fade slowly to her breath. Umblical, the breath sensor joined the installation as a belt, connected by a vine.
The installation was created as part of the SVA Artist in Residency programme in New York City by Shilo Shiv Suleman using a laser cutter. The technology was worked on by Saraswathi and Nelson from ITP.
