Southerly: Breath of Anxiety
Copeland Gallery, London
Opening performances · 29 January 2025 Public exhibition · 30 January–2 February 2025
About the exhibition
Southerly: Breath of Anxiety continued Landless’s inquiry into the relationship between nature and existential anxiety. Curated by SungHoon Song, the exhibition developed a sequence of five interconnected propositions: nature as an image of infinity; the recognition of human finitude; the translation of overwhelming ideas into perceptible forms; the release of accumulated existential burdens; and the possibility of affirming a self that continues to change through time.
Each proposition took shape through a distinct work and its surrounding space. Lustre brought moving water, light and recorded imagery into a sensory encounter with natural energy. Breath in Sight approached the limits of existence through breath and its perceived weight. Maternal Bond, A Timeless Embrace gave maternal connection a tactile and spatial form. Condensation of Memories 5 approached repetition as a practice of reflection, while Talk to Her considered the recognition of a life through its unfolding misfortunes and its end.
Live performances introduced further relationships between these works and the bodies inhabiting the gallery. The programme also included workshops led by Donna Kim, and by SungHoon Song together with Bryan Yueshen Wu, extending the exhibition’s questions into movement, breathing and focused attention. Across these encounters, anxiety remained something to acknowledge and engage with: a condition through which nature, time and one’s own presence could be experienced together.
Credits
Presented by: Landless
Landless team for this exhibition: SungHoon Song & Donna Kim & Seongmin Kim
Curated by: SungHoon Song
Supported by: Copeland Gallery
Works in space
Lustre
Bryan Yueshen Wu & SungHoon Song
Audiovisual installation
The infinity represented by nature itself
Yunsul, the shimmering of light on water, is translated into moving light, recorded imagery and sound. The installation approaches nature’s energy through a sensory encounter that can be experienced from within the gallery.
Breath in Sight
Donna Kim with Nina Maria & Dohee Park
Sculpture, moving image and performance
Human finitude and the anxiety it evokes
Breath, bodily movement and the relationship between a viewer and an image make the limits of existence perceptible. Shifts of scale and gaze bring attention to the apparent weight of something as transient as a breath.
Maternal Bond, A Timeless Embrace
Seongmin Kim & Francesca Miotti
Sculptural installation
Giving vast concepts a form within perception
A pearl suspended within another pearl, together with textile and tactile materials, gives maternal connection a spatial form. Touch and proximity invite an intimate relationship with a concept that exceeds a single image.
Condensation of Memories 5
Woo Jung Ghil
Painting
Releasing existential burdens through an awareness of finitude
Repetitive layers of painting become a practice of reflection. The accumulated surface approaches the possibility of releasing existential burdens through an awareness of human finitude.
Talk to Her
Iwa
Moving image
Recognising oneself within time and affirming the changing present
A woman digging a grave becomes the point of departure for a reconsideration of her life. A reversed temporal structure revisits its misfortunes and asks how a person might recognise and affirm a self that changes through time.
Breath of Anxiety
Landless
Photographic and visual series
Images of desolate nature retain emotional afterimages of an encounter. Distributed through the exhibition, the series provides a visual thread connecting its questions of anxiety, human limits and the natural world.
Performances
Opening event
29 January 2025 · 17:00–22:00
Five live performances brought the principal works into dialogue with movement, music and bodily presence.
Lustre
Performance: Jacob Zang & Qi Song
29 January 2025
Movement and music enter the installation’s field of light, smoke and water reflections. The performance develops a bodily encounter with the work’s exploration of nature and anxiety.
Breath in Sight
Performance: Donna Kim
29 January 2025
Attention to the weight of breath, shifts of scale and the gaze of the viewer brings the work into a live bodily encounter.
Maternal Bond, A Timeless Embrace
Performance: Juliet Williams
29 January 2025
Drawing on the experience of being both mother and daughter, the performance approaches maternal lineage through the installation’s pearl, shell and textile forms.
Condensation of Memories 5
Performance: Sungeun Kang & Samuel Vincent
29 January 2025
Violin and cello create a musical and theatrical dialogue around the painting. The performance moves between states of authenticity and inauthenticity, extending its reflection on existence.
Talk to Her
Performance: Sung Im Her
29 January 2025
A woman retraces her life backwards through time. The live performance responds to the moving-image work’s concern with recognising change and affirming the present.
Film screenings
Screenings every 30 minutes; paused during workshops.
Workshops
In time, a moment to pause
Led by Donna Kim
1 February 2025 · 14:00 · 45 minutes
An embodied movement workshop attending to the weight of the body, breath and gravity. Slow movement and attention to bodily sensation provide a way of encountering anxiety through physical experience.
Southerly Sonic Meditation Workshop
Led by SungHoon Song & Bryan Yueshen Wu
1 February 2025 · 15:00 · 30 minutes
A guided encounter with anxiety and relief through focused attention and meditation. The programme begins by heightening bodily receptivity before considering the existential meanings that arise in an encounter with nature. Situated among the exhibition’s installations, meditation becomes part of an experiential performance.