Bellybutton and Breathing

• (When reading these texts, please move your mouth as you read silently, and listen to the sound of your breath.)

Hey, Io.¹ Do you remember the smell of the air when you breathed in for the very first time? Twenty-eight years ago, you and I were connected through the bellybutton. But the second you were delivered, we were disconnected, the route between us was cut off, and the hole was closed. Then the bellybutton formed its shape. The scar that you left on yourself as a sign of who you are is never to be healed and is still on your belly like a remain until today.

Io, I wonder if there was any other way that you and I could live besides being separated. Is making a distinction and being closed like that the only way to maintain our identities?You gave your first cry as if you rejected the disconnection. You opened your lungs that were filled with amniotic fluid and vibrated the air with your stiffened muscle that you used for the first time. Ever since then, several liters of the outside world go through you every day. Donʼt you think itʼs terrifying? Even so, we still need to continue living by naming ourselves “I” .

Sometimes, I feel like my body is a hard shell. Especially when I am in a crowd. I feel my borders distinctly and find myself wanting to be out. Or perhaps I seek for somewhere to hide. Somewhere deep inside that I could not even recognize. Hey Io, how can you stand as if everything is alright? As if you have never cracked, leaked, or been replaced.

• “Breath is already a first form of cannibalism.” ²
• Since the spread of COVID-19, we were required to live through the days of being physically disconnected with others, and I remember breathing and hearing the sound of others' breath felt terrifying.

However, I also remember that we cannot stop breathing in order to stay alive. At the same time, we cannot let go of the fact that we are individual selves and the fiction of “I” with a scar (a bellybutton) which I remember we, the community of us wavered between the state of being opened and closed.

Today, how would you feel if you give attention to the sound of others’ breath? Would it bring you relief like a ripple of agitation? Or would it be terrified, sound like a modest scream? When we breathe together, do you think that our rhythms would synchronize? Or would they be out of control as we lose our rhythms? Before everything, how do we usually breath? I hope that this installation and performance 3 will enable to breath in and out the air of our times.

• io …[pronoun, masculine or feminine] 1. I 2. self, oneself [philosophy] ego reference: Primo, Italian-Japanese Dictionary
• Coccia, Emanuele. The Life of Plants : A Metaphysics of Mixture. Polity Press, 2019
• Pefromance “Bellybutton and Breathing” was perfromed by 15 people at AJIBI Hall, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum on December 10, 2022.