Work in progress: Kalpana Subramanian’s Breath Worlds

Saturday, December 21, 12 pm ET
Free or suggested donation
Online over Zoom. RSVP below

Squeaky Wheel is excited to welcome back Kalpana Subramanian for an online artist talk on her in-progress project Breath Worlds – an interdisciplinary project composed of sound works, emerging technologies, moving image and performance.

With breathing in crisis, our existence as a respiratory species is becoming increasingly precarious and inequitable. This project speculates on what it means to breathe, in an era when breath itself can no longer be taken for granted. How can breath be reclaimed from the forces that imperil it? Can breath be cultivated and shared? These are just some of the motivations that guide this project – exploring breath and breathing as a universal right (Mbembe, 2020), a form of interconnectedness and a future paradigm.

The project is supported by the New York State Council of the Arts’ Support for Artists grant.

Biography of the artist

Kalpana Subramanian, PhD, is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker and scholar whose recent practice explores transcultural and interdisciplinary approaches to experimental film and media. Her arts-based doctoral research at the Department of Media Study, University at Buffalo, proposes a novel mode of experiencing cinema through an attention to breath philosophy and poetics. Her films have been exhibited at venues including the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Images Festival (Canada), Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival (Scotland), Chicago Underground Film Festival, Flaherty NYC Seminar (USA) UNESCO (France), Wildscreen UK, and National Gallery of Modern Art (Mumbai, India) among others. Her films have received awards from the Documentary Festival of History and Archeology (Italy, 2015), Montana CINE International Film Festival (USA, 2003, 2005) and the Center for Media Studies Vatavaran Film Festival (India, 2008). Her curated programs have screened at Simon Fraser University (Canada), Harvard FAS CAMLab, Alternative Cinema series (Colgate University, USA) and Bristol Experimental Expanded Film (UK) among others. Subramanian is recipient of a UK Environmental Film Fellowship (2006), Fulbright Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship (2015-16) and a New York State Council on the Arts grant (2024) among other honors. She is an Assistant Professor of Cinema Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Banner image: Blue and orange light curved around a flecked surface. On top of the image are the logos of Squeaky Wheel and the New York State Council of the Arts and the words “Breath Worlds. Kalpana Subramanian”.