BREATH MOUNTAIN
2021-present
Breath Mountain is an ongoing creative research project by Alexis Elton and Nina Elder. We are artists and researchers who practice in the hybrid spaces between creativity and science. With a dedication to experimentation and deep observation, we seek to understand the moisture cycle and its unique ecologic expressions. This multi-site, interdisciplinary project uses the methodology of field science, combined with aesthetic and material ingenuity, to explore respirating landscapes.
Our interest is in isolated ecosystems that breathe, sites of reciprocity between Earth and sky. We are curious about the interdependence between extremely different entities. Breath Mountain is an exploration of how ecological relationships create pockets of protection and evolutionary endurance in the midst of environmental upheaval. The sustained diversity we witness is evidence of creative adaptation and unique trans-species collaborations. We explore and learn from these phenomena in order to discover metaphors and parallels between these sites and our human bodies.
research sites and residencies:
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Watershed Center for Art and Ecology in Chicago
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The American Museum of Natural History Southwestern Research Station in southern Arizona
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Greenhorns in Pembroke, Maine
performance
research
GREENHORNS may 2026
Greenhorns in Pembroke, Maine
In their ongoing exploration of respirating landscapes and the global moisture cycle, Alexis and Nina turned their focus to oceanic currents. Hosted by The Greenhorns, a farm-forward, rural, aquaculture and agrarian advocacy megaplex on the edge of the Cobscook Bay, Breath Mountain worked to embody the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). This conveyor belt of different temperatures of oceanic waters moderates that planet’s temperatures and is under threat of collapse. Breath Mountain used choreography, props, and culinary experiments to gain better understanding of AMOC’s presence and precariousness.
watershed april 2024
Watershed Center for Art and Ecology in Chicago
“What is urban metabolism? How can it be understood from microscopic to planetary dimensions? Where does it break down, transform, start up again? And how to form an artistic image of the continuous metamorphosis that both threatens and sustains us?” These are questions asked by Watershed founders, Claire Pentecost and Brian Holmes. Hosted in their intimate art space, Alexis and Nina metabolized their previous work to create a single day exhibition and performance that reinvigorated the tools they have traveled with, research ephemera, scores for movements, pseudo-scientific objects, and collective breath work. During the residency, Breath Mountain also lead a community walk exploring the infrastructure that aerates Chicago’s public waterways.
sky islands august 2023
The American Museum of Natural History Southwestern Research Station in southern Arizona
Through a self-directed residency in the Chiricahua Sky Islands of southern Arizona, Alexis and Nina explored how they can interface with scientists, landscapes, and embodied interpretation of the moisture cycle. These mountains surrounded by deserts create their own isolated cloud systems and resultant ecologies, known as sky islands. By making daily performances using adhoc props and choreography, Breath Mountain grew to be a sustaining collaboration that bridges disparate realms. This work flourishes in the interstices between sky and earth, between disciplines of inquiry, and between two creative individuals.
