Processes of tension, anxiety, healing, and relaxation are ways to bring out what is inside. What are these fine limits, however? The matter: skin, flesh, bones, fluid. Let out what needs to come out. How to take what is in your breath?

Amidst the first peak of the pandemic, in June 2020, I returned to my parents’ house, and my entire family fell ill with Covid-19. I experienced responsibility, fear, and uncertainty. By watching the actions I repeated over and over during those days, I realized that almost all were related to the tension and anxiety experienced during the quarantine period. These are things I normally do alone, while looking for relief, healing, relaxation, and ways to get what’s inside. These are ways to keep sane in times of chaos, impermanence, pain, anger. I explored how to exist in this world, living in this body that gets sick, that heals, that dies, lives, and dies, with each air that enters and leaves.

– Facing a red wall, just a face, neck, shoulders/bust are visible

– Action 1: pass the tip of a needle through the skin, outlining and drawing lines

– Action 2: take 3 deep breaths

– Action 3: bite your cheeks inside your mouth

– Action 4: pinch your face

– Action 5: try to separate the skin from the bones, pull the hair

– Action 6: pass a necklace of seeds on the skin, outlining the shapes

– Action 7: hang the necklace around your neck

– Action 8: pass smoothly a tree branch with leaves down the face

– Action 9: pour a glass of water over your head