About Us
Photograph by Alekon Pictures
Black + Breathing is a community-focused social practice project by artist Lory Ivey Alexander. The artist seeks to bring restorative energy to the Black community. The project is centered around the idea that communal trauma requires communal healing, and that simply put, Black Breath is Black Life.
Black + Breathing (B+B) began as an idea for a single day of free and unobstructed breathing for Black bodies during the spring of 2020, as the COVID-19 virus stole the breath of a disproportionate number of Black bodies. (In its genesis, B+B received guidance from Natasha Marin (artist and editor of Black Imagination) and June Phillips, yoga instructor and owner of TrueBliss Television.)
Suddenly, as we planned the Black + Breathing event, George Floyd was smothered before our eyes - his breath literally stolen by the state - and the world changed. It became clear that B+B needed to be more than “just” taking a single day to rest in being alive.
In February 2021, the artist began hosting Black + Breathing Shared Silence Experiences on the Clubhouse app. Subscribe to the Black + Breathing newsletter below to follow along and see what unfolds.
“We will not end white-body supremacy - or any form of human evil - by trying to tear it to pieces. Instead, we can offer people better ways to belong and better things to belong to.”
— Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
photograph by Leighann Blackwood