Breath(ing) with ‘Histories that Hurt’ – We Share Air
In Brief: Embodied Circular Readings
This page details my embodied circular readings—a practice that transforms textual narratives into living, shared experiences. In these sessions, my films are played in fragments—sometimes concurrently—drawing from four key site-specific spaces: Rosary Way in Dublin, Lourdes in France, Fatima in Portugal, and Lough Derg in Ireland. Through performative readings, collective listening, and embodied participation, these fragmented visuals and shared breaths engage with maternal memory, transgenerational affect, and the interplay between personal and collective histories, creating a dynamic forum for reimagining inherited narratives.
In our sessions, shared air becomes a living archive where every breath speaks. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s notion of “histories that hurt,” we explore how inherited silences, loss, and trauma shape our bodily and cultural narratives. Each inhalation and exhalation opens a space for collective reorientation and possibility.
Embodied Circular Readings
In embodied workshops which I term, “circular readings”, the timbre of my voice and breath vibrates between bodily and filmic forms, creating temporal spaces that disrupt conventional time. These sessions invite participants to engage with texts and performances that unsettle linear narratives, challenging us to confront painful histories and embrace the promise of future breath.
‘Histories that Hurt’
As defined by Sara Ahmed, “histories that hurt” serve as a guide to interrogate the gaps and silences in our shared memory. By engaging with these difficult histories through embodied practice, we create new avenues for resilience and transformation.
Embodied Circular Reading | Tsarino Foundation AiR, Bulgaria
We breathe with the autobiographical,
poetical,
and archival polyphony of voices
gathered from previous readings,
performances in both public and private air, and filmic bodies—a collective chorus that carries our shared breath into transformative futures.
In this moment, we feel a fragment of an invitation into an embodied circular reading, a call to step into the interplay of voice, memory, and movement, where each breath reclaims our histories and opens space for new ways of being.
These words were written collaboratively with Graduate Tutor and PhD researcher Killian O’Dwyer as part of the Counterfield research and practice collective—where embodied research first took seed among collective bodies. They emerged from our shared breath over the dining room table during our writing residency in Brighton, unfolding within the rhythms of our lived space.
I invite ‘yet-to-come’ collaborators to join embodied circular readings—a space where Irish maternal breath expands outward to embrace all who arrive, inviting us to breathe with ‘histories that hurt’ and with bodies that hold multiplicities of time and knowledge. Here, we attend to the panicked body of transgenerational trauma and the complexities of the unsayable as public and private intertwine. Through invitations to listen, move, and voice, we engage with filmic bodies where bodily breath and filmic breath collide, transforming shared silence into collective resonance.
Before embarking on this shared journey of discovery, I invite you to consider how the feminine is evoked in my work. I align with Julia Kristeva’s focus on the
“transformative potential of what she conceptualizes as the feminine—not femininity, not femaleness or womanhood, but a specific aspect of the human psyche that can serve as the engine of our capacity to change.”
This thread of thought, as explored through The School of Materialist Research’s The Feminine in an Age of Anthropological Transformation (which I joined in September 2024), continues to inspire and shape my research and practice.
These intersectional, non-hierarchical feminist spaces invite collaborators at embodied circular readings to envision physical structures as they desire, to create living conditions through movement, and to converse through breath—introducing themselves through the enduring memory of water
Listen with your body.
Allow your memory spaces to flow toward the bodies of water that come to you—
waters that hold you,
trouble you,
disrupt,
care,
respond,
elude,
and move among us
The durational collective practice is essential for navigating bodily, psychic, relational, and political histories that hurt. Embodied Circular Readings take place in spaces where we dwell together over time—spaces that host the reading and listening groups I facilitate, communal meals where we cook and share food, and the in-between sociability (as described by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney) that these atmospheres evoke.
This is the shared rhythm of dwelling together.
Filmic Breath & Sonic Resonance:
Exploring Transgenerational Memory
Through Sound & Movement
Upcoming Workshops with Angelos Streklas
Ireland | 2025
My collaboration with musician and artist, Angelos Streklas began at Tsarino Residency in Bulgaria, where we explored breath, sound, and movement as forms of memory and transmission. This encounter led to an ongoing exploration of filmic breath and sonic improvisation, using breathwork, Greek and Irish Bouzouki, and site-responsive music to investigate how landscapes, histories, and bodies hold and transmit memory.
Our Embodied Workshops across Ireland will focus on breath as a transformative force within transgenerational memory, bridging maternal inheritance, cultural transmission, and sonic resonance. Through improvisational sound, movement-based breathwork, and site-responsive film practices, we will explore:
How breath and sound interact across generations—where maternal breath carries histories of silence, loss, and resistance.
How musical scripts composed by Angelos on Greek and Irish Bouzouki can be in dialogue with scripted performances and breathwork.
How filmic breath interventions can create visual and sonic landscapes that reimagine the maternal relation as transformative and generative rather than solely defined by rupture.
By integrating embodied listening, soundwork, and movement, these workshops will continue my practice-based research into breath as a site of cultural, feminist, and intergenerational transformation.
Selected Examples of Embodied Circular Readings
Knees to Stone, Three Secrets,
Tsarino AiR Foundation
Bulgarian Eastern Rhodope Mountains | Sept 2024
Before each embodied workshop, I send a “letter of address” that outlines the affective terrains we will traverse—an invitation for each collaborator to enter the space with the freedom to come and go as needed. At Tsarino, we crafted these letters collectively, translating them into Bulgarian, Greek, Dutch, and English so that every language could speak its truth into the air. These letters await on our shared dinner table, a tangible part of our durational practice that carries communities along with “histories that hurt.”
The stones holding these letters—shown in the image above—are from an abandoned village, some sculpted by local residents involved in the artist residency and weathered by the elements. They stand as silent witnesses to our ongoing embodied circular readings, where we reclaim, re-read, and re-breathe our collective past
“In the second session, where the film and guided meditation took place, I felt as if I was really diving into some childhood memories—particularly connected to water and the river where I had some of my earliest father-son memories. It was deeply emotional and cathartic.”
Embodied Circular Reading moving through the air at Tsarino
We begin in our communal outdoor kitchen,
the plates returned cleaned and dried to the wooden shelves,
the vessels that once held the Irish stew I cooked.
We find ourselves surrounded by cows
that roam the Eastern Rhodope mountains;
we dance gently past their curious eyes.
We move together through the abandoned village—
inside and outside houses,
climbing down toward the waterfall,
passing pine and oak trees,
while our voices cling to the leaves.
Our bodies feel the cold welcome of water held in the stream.
A large beetle dives down into the depths and back to the air;
the water weaves, flows, and trickles on its way to the waterfall.
We climb.
We share two cars.
We find ourselves at the vitrine,
which holds fragments of our words
from the reading and listening group that came before.
The sun is setting.
Our communal fire crackles into the night air,
mingling with distant Bulgarian music and chatty crickets.
The timbre of my voice joins the chorus—
our communal voices tangle.
Our bodies respond to filmic breath between the firelight and our head touches.
My body disorients, orients, and reorients between the filmic body and my own.
Bodily and Filmic Breath
A new filmic body, forged in conversation with Tsarino, is screened during the workshop.
Post card Dis/Comfort | An Embodied Response
SMR Summer School, The Feminine in an Age of Anthropological Transformation,
Greece | Sept 2024
At the School of Materialist Research Summer School, I presented an embodied scripted reading in response to the theme of The Feminine in an Age of Anthropological Transformation. This durational reading explored the intersections of maternal breath, diasporic shame, and embodied memory, reflecting on how the feminine is continually shaped, contested, and (re)configured across generations.
Rooted in my practice-based research, the reading wove together autobiographical fragments, archival traces, and sensory engagement with breath—attending to what remains unsaid, inherited, or transformed within the maternal body. As a performed intervention, it activated the space through voice, rhythm, and the act of collective listening, mirroring how transnational feminist thought and bodily experience unfold in the moment we are.
The presentation engaged with Julia Kristeva’s notion of the feminine as an ongoing process of transformation, considering how maternal experience, shame, and resistance inscribe themselves into bodily and textual memory. The reading functioned as both an invocation and a rupture, unsettling conventional narratives of comfort and containment while embracing the discomfort that comes with embodied feminist inquiry.
This work continues my research into breath as performance, exploring how the maternal body exists in process—unfixed, unsettled, but always becoming.
Post card Dis/Comfort, The Priest is in the Kitchen,
Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre (BOARC),
Liverpool | June 2024
Nestled within the historic walls of Bidston Observatory, this embodied circular reading unfolded as a durational practice shaped by breath, voice, movement, and the rhythms of communal living. The site—once an astronomical and tidal research centre—offered a unique resonance for exploring shared air, bodily attunement, and the fluid negotiations of space.
This workshop did not follow a fixed structure; instead, it evolved responsively, guided by the desires, needs, and energies of those present. The generative discussions that shaped this work began over the dining room table, where we gathered to share food and thoughts, reflecting on feminist philosophy, transgenerational breath, and embodied practice. Artists, performance artists, PhD students across various disciplines, writers, and local residents engaged in deep dialogue, forging connections that extended beyond the designated reading spaces. Even the presence of visiting dogs became part of the experience—reminding us of the porous boundaries between human and nonhuman, structured engagement and spontaneous interaction.
The practice of shared housework—cleaning, cooking, and caring for the space together—became an extension of the reading itself, mirroring the durational, dwelling-with nature of my work at Tsarino Artist Residency. These acts of maintenance and care underscored how embodied knowledge is not only held in embodied scripted readings and performance but in the gestures of everyday life.
The circular readings moved between rooms, chosen in the moment, responding to the embodied dynamics of the group and the ways the architecture itself influenced our interactions. Without a singular audience, the readings became dialogues with space itself—engaging voice, gesture, proximity, and stillness.
In this setting, the observatory—once a place of measurement and observation—became something else: a space of listening, attunement, and the generative reconfiguration of shared air. These embodied readings wove together autobiographical, archival, and theoretical texts, punctuated by breath, silence, and the subtle, ever-present exchanges between bodies.
To respect the intimacy and vulnerability of those who participated, there are no images of the collaborators. Instead, the images presented here document the rooms we moved through, capturing the atmospheres that held and shaped this work—a testament to the unfolding, communal process of reading, dwelling, and breathing together.
Embodied Workshops at Goldsmiths, University of London
My embodied workshops at Goldsmiths have unfolded across multiple courses and programs, shaping and being shaped by diverse academic and artistic contexts. Rooted in my research on transgenerational shame, maternal breath, and feminist philosophy, these sessions explore the intersections of theory and practice through breathwork, movement, and performative readings.
I have facilitated workshops and seminars across BA, MA, and Graduate Diploma modules, integrating embodied methodologies within:
Feminist and Queer Technoscience (BA Visual Cultures) – Exploring breath as a feminist and queer modality, engaging students in movement-based inquiry alongside theoretical discussions.
Histories of Art LAB (Graduate Diploma, led by Dr. Alice Andrews) – Developing experimental structures of care and collaborative engagement through embodied responses to text and archival materials.
Ocean as Archive (MA Contemporary Art Theory, taught by Dr. Vráblíková) – Introducing somatic and sensory practices to explore the entanglements of breath, water, and filmic bodies.
Situated Knowledges (Spring 2025, BA Visual Cultures) – Facilitating a workshop that will guide students in developing a public-facing group project, further integrating embodied, site-specific research with collaborative methodologies.
These workshops function as sites of collective attunement, where breath, movement, and text interweave to reconfigure traditional modes of learning. The methodologies I develop—drawing from circular readings, filmic breath, and performative engagement—foster an environment where participants can critically and bodily engage with histories, archives, and their own embodied responses.
Disorientation at the Site of the Letter,
Goldsmiths University of London, London | May 2024
One such workshop, Disorientation at the Site of the Letter, focused on the destabilizing effects of encountering maternal archives. Working with breath, touch, and voice, participants navigated the disorienting impact of reading and re-reading a letter that revealed a previously silenced maternal history. The session wove together autobiographical and archival materials, guiding participants through a durational engagement with silence, revelation, and the tensions between presence and absence.
This workshop exemplified the ways in which my research extends beyond theoretical engagement, inviting participants to experience histories that hurt through embodied practice. As with all my workshops at Goldsmiths, it demonstrated the critical potential of embodied methodologies—not only as a mode of inquiry but as a way of fostering new forms of relationality, knowledge-making, and collective reflection.
Through these experiences, my practice continues to evolve, responding to the emergent needs of each space and the bodies within it. These workshops are not static events but living processes—expanding, contracting, and shifting with each iteration.
We move together through the inhale, interval to the exhale, ‘Being faithful to the spacing of breath, this ‘rhythm and melody of the universe’ (Irigaray 2004d, p. 50). By bringing consciousness to our breath, we gesture to the other, commune with the other and return to the self.
Reorientations
The mother-daughter relation becomes a site for exploring how air is shared—between two bodies and within collective bodies. Through repetitive reorientations, these spaces open to communion in breath, offering resilience and possibilities for transformation.
‘Tu’, ‘Vous’
Drawing inspiration from Derrida’s The Postcard, this work considers shifting modes of address—how ‘you’ is spoken, withheld, or transformed in intimate and public exchanges. Through breath, movement, and the act of letter-writing, we navigate the thresholds between proximity and distance, familiarity and estrangement.
We share air.
We move with and are shaped by the air around us, often forgetting the ground beneath our feet.
The embodied circular readings create shared spaces where all who arrive are invited to engage in ways that feel comfortable to them—to come and go as needed, attuning to their own rhythms within the collective breath.
Since the embodied research and movement workshops held in collaboration with artists, dancers, and researchers, these explorations have intertwined, evolving into the embodied circular readings at the core of my research and practice. They form touches, knots, and entanglements within my PhD, bridging theory and artistic practice.
Ethical Practice & Participant Privacy
In all my workshops, participant consent is central. Photos are only taken when explicit permission is given, ensuring that everyone feels comfortable in the space. To maintain an open and supportive environment for engaging with difficult subjects, I do not record participants. This approach fosters a space where people can share, reflect, and engage freely without concern for documentation.
Participant Consent and Agency
In all my embodied workshops and listening and reading groups, I prioritise participant agency and ethical engagement. Before each session, participants receive an Address and Consent Form detailing the workshop's purpose, structure, and any potential emotional impacts. This ensures transparency and empowers participants with informed consent.
I encourage all participants to read and sign the consent form beforehand, ensuring they have the agency to engage at their own pace and step out at any time if needed.
For more details, you can view or download the forms here:
EMBODIED CIRCULAR READINGS
‘Arrival of the Light’, Breath(ing) with ‘Histories that Hurt’ We Share Air’, Pedvale Art Park, Latvia | (TBC)
2024
Knees to Stone, Three Secrets, Tsarino Foundation, Bulgarian Eastern Rhodope Mountains, Sept 2024
Post card Dis/Comfort, SMR Summer School, The Feminine in an Age of Anthropological Transformation, Greece | Sept 2024
Post card Dis/Comfort, The Priest is in the Kitchen, Bidston Observatory Artistic Research Centre (BOARC), Liverpool | Jun 2024
Disorientation at the Site of the Letter, Brockley | Apr 2024
Disorientation at the Site of the Letter, Goldsmiths University of London, London | May 2024
EMBODIED RESEARCH AND MOVEMENT WORKSHOPS
2024
‘The Feminine-to-Come and Filmic Breath of the Irish Catholic Maternal, Goldsmiths University, London |February 2024
2023
‘The Feminine-to-Come and Filmic Breath of the Irish Catholic Maternal, Goldsmiths University, London| December 2023
Research Café – Research in conversation with artist Esmeralda Valencia, Women’s Art Library, London| December 2023
‘The Feminine-to-Come and Filmic Breath, collaborative embodied research event, with researcher Sara Simić, Central European University, Goldsmiths |October 2023
2022
Counterfield workshops – Indeterminate Transmissions, Filmic Bodies and Bodies of Motion, collaborative embodied research event, with researcher Daphna Westerman and dancer, choreographer and curator Jiaying Gao, New Cross |October 2022
Archival Explorations
I work with archives such as the Library of Ireland, the Irish Film Institute, the Radharc Archive, and the London Metropolitan Archives—as living spaces where histories are inscribed in silence. In these gaps between recorded narratives and lived experience, layers of maternal shame, transgenerational trauma, and unspoken cultural memory emerge. My embodied workshops engage with these archival materials, re-reading and re-enacting forgotten voices to challenge established narratives and illuminate what has been submerged. Through this process, the archives become transformative sites where the unsayable is given form, inviting us to navigate and reclaim the embodied histories that have long remained in the shadows.
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