Sarah Brahim b. 1992

NEUMA, The Forgotten Ceremony, Residency at Villa Hegra, Al Ula, Saudi Arabia

Sarah Brahim and Ugo Schiavi present the results of their collaborative project, NEUMA, The Forgotten Ceremony. This installation marks the culmination of their residency at Villa Hegra. Imagined as a symbolic gesture paying tribute to the ritual practices of the pre-Islamic tribes of AlUla, this installation by Brahim et Schiavi is the result of in-depth research carried out in close collaboration with archaeologists and local communities across the region. Drawing inspiration from the landscape of AlUla, its mythology and heritage, this exhibition fosters a contemplative mood by subtly blending contemporary creation, elements of the site’s ancient history, as well as temporal and spiritual elements across an ensemble of sculptures, videos, photography commissions and a performative activation.

A series of handcrafted blown glass sculptures—shaped to reiterate the contours of AlUla's geology and its metamorphosis—are presented in a scenography evoking an archaeological reserve. These glass vessels, evocative of relics from a forgotten era or a speculative past, become ceremonial and ritualistic objects when activated by the breath of performers. Neuma, the “vital breath” in classical thought, finds its physical embodiment in these works, where the earthly body and breath appear entwined with the celestial body and the soul. For Aristotle, ”pneuma” (πνεῦμα) was regarded as the animating principle of life. Transcending the individual in Stoic thought, “pneuma” became the divine breath of the cosmos. With this proposition, the artists portray breath as the pulse of existence, the soul as an unseen current — flowing through spaces where form and meaning meet. Curated by Wejdan Reda and Arnaud Morand.

Soft Machines / Far Away Engines, Diriyah Biennale, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 11 Dec 2021 – 11 March 2022

Soft Machines/Far Away Engines is an 8 channel performance film with sound commissioned by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation 2021. Exhibited at 16th Lyon Biennale 2022. In the choreographic essay Soft Machines/Far Away Engines, Brahim interpolates video, installation, sound, and performance to impart a sense of transcendence. Portraying a universe in which the human body is a vessel of memory, a site of transformation, and a vehicle of communication, timed projections appear on panels that can be seen either separately or as a single choreographic composition. These panels serve as a structure to move throughout the space, with the position of the observer determining their perception of the immersive performance. The work incorporates a series of games, tasks, research and improvisations that represent the trajectory of movement through the body from internal to external.

Beginning with the breath as the most ancient movement memory residing in the body, and tracking its internal intimate motion recognizing each body in the works breath as an evidence of the first breath or first life. As motion moves through the body to its border there must be a point where it breaks through and is now a part of the social body, the transmission from a single body to a common territory. Soft Machines and Far Away Engines creates a symbolic space where futures are performed through voicing and embodiment while searching to connect and evolve in a constant state of becoming. The film depicts planned as well as spontaneous motions that oscillate between individual and group gestures, emphasizing curiosity, sensation, and the transmission of energy through movement. Veering between moments of introspection and transcendence, Brahim reveals in real time how the human figure can metamorphose into light, image, sound, and back again.