Ivana Dama: Ivana Dama: The Air Was Already There

“A breath is a temporary arrangement of air, time, and the bodies through which it passes,” writes Ross Gay in The Book of Delights. The words are printed on the wall as you enter this tiny storefront gallery, filled floor-to-ceiling, corner to corner with flexible silver aluminum ducting, the kind used to connect air-conditioning systems.

Two tubes are attached to a blower just below the ceiling at the back of the room. Now and again, it switches on, sending air through them. The tubes shudder and move. Then comes the sound. It’s intense. It’s startling, actually. Not exactly the gentle breath we expected.

At first, you might think it's an angry driver leaning on their horn outside (it’s New York City, after all). But look closer, and you’ll spot a harmonica-like pipe attached to the end of the tubes.

The installation operates in cycles inspired by the breathing patterns of different animal species, including whales, which can stay underwater for 10 or 15 minutes between breaths. The longer you stay, the more aware you become of the silence between sounds.

Sound can't travel through a vacuum. It needs air. Here, air also makes the sound. Each blast interrupts whatever you were thinking about. Then comes silence, and you find yourself waiting for the next breath.

Ivana Dama (b. Belgrade, 1995) lives and works in New York. She studied Media Arts and Digital Humanities at UCLA and earned an MFA in sculpture from Yale in 2024. She has taught sound art at Columbia University and Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Aspen, and is interim director of Harvestworks, the New York organization supporting artists working with electronic media.