Title: Poetics of Filmic Breath: Maternal Air
Year: 2023 to ongoing

Medium: Multi channel experimental film series; (shot and exhibited in 4K); embodied workshop iterations; performance installation
Duration: 2 to 25 minutes (presented in fragments, never in full)

My current practice is anchored in five site-specific spaces:

Rosary Way, Dublin,

Lourdes, France

Fatima, Portugal

Lough Derg, Ireland

A dining room table, Croydon

These four pilgrimage sites and one intimate lived space, form the constellation through which I explore breath, ritual, and maternal relation. The performances at the dining table in Croydon are rooted in the everyday intimacy of care, Irish diaspora in London, and dementia, and are where the practice began. My mother and I return again and again to reading aloud a letter from my late aunt. But it is not the words that remain—it is our breath. These shared breaths, pauses, and silences form the structuring rhythm of all the filmic bodies. They are the pulse that moves the work.

From this ‘private air’, the practice expands outwards to ‘public.’ These moments of shared air; quiet gestures, silences, tensions, and co-breathing, structure not only the internal rhythms of the films but the methodology itself. From this intimate atmosphere, the work begins to expand outward into sites that feature the Virgin Mary, tracing a path shaped by both personal inheritance and embodied longing. This trajectory was initiated by a quiet gesture: my mother handing me the rosary once given to her by her own mother, brought back from a church visit to Lourdes. My body responded with a call to go. I couldn’t articulate why. I just longed to be where my grandmother had once stood, to stay with what lingers in my body that does not originate with me.

This act was not one of pilgrimage in the traditional sense, but a movement toward inhabiting inherited residues, toward understanding how to remain in dialogue not only with my mother, but with my belated grandmother. Through filmic breath, I attempt to navigate and rebody these intergenerational transmissions; making space for their affective weight while also sensing toward what might emerge beyond them.

The Marian sites—Dublin, Lourdes, Fatima, and Lough Derg—serve as filmic thresholds between bodily, spiritual, and historical rhythms. These spaces allow for a different kind of attunement: not to the spectacle of pilgrimage, but to the unnoticed gestures, pauses, and breaths that linger within them. The films made in these places correspond loosely to the Mysteries of the Rosary but resist linear narrative, instead unfolding through non-synchronous time, sensory layering, and bodily pacing.

In embodied workshops, the fragments from each site are projected in relation—to one another, to the room, to those present. Sometimes they play sequentially, other times simultaneously, across walls and thresholds. This structure creates not a fixed narrative but a breathing, dynamic filmic body that responds to the collective energy of each encounter. Each workshop becomes an iteration of the practice; unique, contingent, and co-composed.

I often layer water footage, filmed at these sites, and also in London and Ireland, with the images from the Marian sites. Rather than cutting to clarify, I use match-on-action edits to carry breath across shots. The result is not simply a film, but a filmic body—responsive, unresolved, breathing.

The water too is ‘affected’ by our shared breaths, as we are affected by the water that pulses through the filmic fragments.

Bodily Breath

Filmic Breath

Collide

Poetics of Filmic Breath (Ongoing Series, 2023–2025)

Poetics of Filmic Breath: Iteration III – Sorrowful

Witness to Embodiment

At sites of the Virgin Mary, my practice transforms the witnessing of family history into a living act of embodiment. I journey on pilgrimages to Fatima, Rosary Way, Lourdes, and Lough Derg and even walk el Caminos solo, retracing paths steeped in ancestral affects.

My grandmother once carried a Lourdes rosary, passed to my mother and now to me; each step and breath becomes a gesture to reorientate our transgenerational maternal legacy.

Each step,

Each breath,

becomes a moment of listening,

attuning to both grief and transformation,

reimagining identity

and reclaiming the shared breath of our maternal histories.

***

Filmic Breath, Bodily Breath

The edit becomes an inhalation, a pause, an exhale.
This is what I call filmic breath.

Filmic breath refers to an editing rhythm guided by the body's natural breathing patterns, where cuts and transitions align with inhalations and exhalations, creating a visceral connection between the viewer and the embodied experience on screen.

Poetics of Filmic Breath (Ongoing Series, 2023–2025)

Poetics of Filmic Breath: Iteration I – Joyfulness

Rather than cutting to clarify or explain, I use match-on-action edits to let one gesture extend into the next breath. These edits are bodily, not just visual. Through this method, the edges between the film, bodies and space softens.

What’s projected is not a document but an invitation—

to feel, to breathe, to remember otherwise.

Match-on-action is a film editing technique where the editor cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action, creating a seamless flow of movement. In my work, this technique mirrors the continuity or rupture of breath and movement, reinforcing the embodied nature of the narrative.

Poetics of Filmic Breath

Filmic Bodies is not merely a documentation of performance but an invitation to engage with the complexities of memory, transgenerational shame, and the maternal through the visceral language of breath and movement. It stands as a testament to the transformative power of embodied methodologies and the maternal relation.

Return to the main filmic body page to see all films

The films below are part of an ongoing process that informs these core filmic bodies.

Poetics of Filmic Breath in the Four Mysteries of the Irish Catholic Maternal (Joyfulness)

Dublin

An ongoing filmic meditation on breath, memory, and embodiment

Dublin’s Rosary Way

Based in Dublin, my film practice for this piece began when a friend took me to a life-size replica of Lourdes. In a car park behind the church, the Rosary Way unexpectedly captivated me and became the film’s focal point. At each stage of the rosary, I repeatedly read my aunt’s letter aloud in the ‘public’ air, filming for 15 seconds at a time to capture the rhythm of my breath as I recorded sections of each stone and ceramic relief. I have returned repeatedly, making this film an ongoing work in progress.

Poetics of Filmic Breath in the Four Mysteries of the Irish Catholic Maternal (Sorrowful)

Rome

A dual filmic meditation on breath, ritual, and memory across convent spaces

Rome and Venice

This work is in progress as I continuously return to a convent in Rome and one in Venice, where I witness and record the interplay of light, shadow, and silence—allowing the atmosphere to guide the unfolding narrative. In Rome, the convent offers a reflective space for exploring the internal rhythms of embodied memory.

While my film in Venice captures the luminous dance of water, Marian imagery, and shared breath, the work in Rome focuses on the intimate daily ritual and the quiet pauses within such a space. The interplay and reorientation of light, shadow, and ritual creates a dialogue between layers of memory, breath and presence. Together, these films form a dual narrative—constantly moving between internal and external spaces—that invites viewers to experience how filmic breath becomes both a witness and a medium for transformation, reconfiguring our understanding of maternal legacy and embodied experience.

Poetics of Filmic Breath in the Four Mysteries of the Irish Catholic Maternal (Sorrowful)

Venice

A dual filmic meditation on breath, ritual, and memory across convent spaces

Rome and Venice

Filmed upon repeated returns to Venice over many years, this work explores the sorrowful mystery of the rosary and the depths of the Irish Catholic maternal through filmic breath. In a convent by the canal, I capture 15-second fragments of my repeated reading of my aunt’s letter, intertwining personal and collective memory. The film serves as a meditative practice of embodied presence in spaces like convents, reflecting on the historical weight of convent life and its contemporary manifestations. Here, filmic breath becomes a witness to maternal vulnerability and resilience, inviting viewers to contemplate the enduring legacy of transgenerational affect as I navigate my breath and its entanglements with Ireland and London.

Poetics of Filmic Breath in the Four Mysteries of the Irish Catholic Maternal (Sorrowful)

Lourdes

A filmic meditation on breath, ritual, and maternal legacy, tracing inherited memory

Lourdes

This work, set in Lourdes—a key site in my research—marks where my filmic practice took root. Running in parallel to my explorations of the Rosary Way behind the “Irish Lourdes” in Dublin, this piece emerged from my first pilgrimage to Lourdes, ignited by a rosary passed down from my grandmother to my mother and now carried by me. The leather pouch that holds the rosary bears the touch of my grandmother, my mother, and myself, accompanying me on every journey and becoming an integral part of my practice.

In Lourdes, I capture fleeting moments of ritual, breath, and maternal legacy. This space has been essential for navigating my bodily gestures and responses, allowing me to attune to the subtle signals of embodied memory. These filmic fragments intertwine the personal with collective memory, forming a meditative dialogue that speaks to the enduring impact of transgenerational affect. This work reflects on how embodied practices of remembrance transform inherited grief into a living narrative—each inhalation carrying the weight of history, each exhalation opening space for new possibilities.

Through this ongoing process, my camera becomes a witness to the textures of loss, love, and resilience, inviting viewers to explore the layered mysteries of maternal experience in a sacred yet ever-changing space.

Poetics of Filmic Breath in the Four Mysteries of the Irish Catholic Maternal (Sorrowful)

Lourdes/Tsarino

A continuation of my filmic practice from Lourdes, this work explores breath, water, and ritual in an abandoned Bulgarian village, weaving connections between memory, landscape, and maternal legacy.

This film extends my earlier work in Lourdes, conceived in response to an artist residency that transformed an abandoned village in Bulgaria into an art space. In this film, I capture the movement of water and the interplay of breath within the deserted village—filming the stream as it runs through the landscape and recording sonic engagements that became part of my daily ritual. I would trek down to the river, where the rhythmic flow and shared breath guided my practice. Together with other artists and local villagers from the Tsarino collective, we returned to the river to initiate embodied circular readings.

The work explores the sorrowful dimensions of the Irish Catholic maternal through the convergence of ritual, the fluidity of water, and the intimate act of shared breath. In these layered visual fragments, breath becomes a conduit that merges the atmospheres of distinct sites, weaving a dialogue between differing temporalities.

This film was projected in the mountains of Bulgaria and formed part of an embodied workshop.

For more information, please visit Tsarino.

Poetics of Filmic Breath in the Four Mysteries of the Irish Catholic Maternal (Glorious)

Gougana Barra

A filmic meditation on breath, ritual, and rediscovery, this work revisits Gougane Barra—where personal and collective memory converge—transforming a once-forgotten space into a site of embodied reflection.

This film is set in Gougane Barra, a site I visited repeatedly as a young person during family trips to Ireland. The church and its lake are etched in my memory, yet a hidden space behind the church—where the Stations of the Cross are arranged—remained forgotten until now. Reminiscent of the surprising discovery of the Rosary Way in Dublin, this unexpected station has become a focal point in my work.

In this film, I capture the delicate interplay of breath, ritual, and memory as I reconnect with a space that bridges personal history and collective embodiment. Through filmic breath, the work transforms familiar landscapes into sites of luminous rediscovery, inviting viewers to contemplate the layered mysteries of maternal legacy and inherited affect.

Poetics of Filmic Breath in the Four Mysteries of the Irish Catholic Maternal (Glorious), Rocher de la Vierge

This film captures the movement of bodies along the Rocher de la Vierge, where breath, sea, and memory come together in a cycle of return and reflection.

During my journey to Lourdes, I visited the Rocher de la Vierge—where the presence of the Virgin Mary crowns a rock, embraced by the endless sea. In this work, my body was pulled to this space. I observed how bodies flowed along the rock’s edge, reaching its end only to turn back and gaze at the Virgin Mary. The film interweaves intimate moments of embodied recollection with the elemental energy of the sea. Here, the rhythmic pulse of breath transforms into a living testament to maternal legacy and resilience.