Ekene Ijeoma is a Nigerian-American conceptual artist who researches social, political, and environmental systems to poetically expose inequities and empower communities. His interdisciplinary practice spans interactive light installations, data-driven performances, and participatory landworks expanding on Black American and African experiences, traditions, and symbols. He is the founder of Black Forest—a living monument and archive planting trees for Black ancestors and distributing multimedia on Black Nature. His work has been presented by the Boston Public Art Triennial, Getty PST Art, Onassis Foundation, the Exploratorium, Van Alen Institute, and The Kennedy Center.
“In 2021, as COVID-19 was declining and the city was reopening, I presented Breathing Pavilion—a participatory light installation and jazz performance series in a Brooklyn plaza that invited passersby to pause and synchronize their breaths with mine. After installing it in an Athens park, I started thinking about how this work could live in multiple places at once. With Breathing Rooms, I’m excited to collaborate with the teams at CultureHub New York and SAT Montréal to develop telepresence technologies and environments that invite our communities to transcend borders through our breaths using light.”