The Breath We Share
an evening of art & organizing for clean air 🍃
Saturday, April 11, 6-10pm (performances 7-9pm)
at Sandalwood Farm - 2836 Sandalwood Ave. Rialto, CA 92377
FREE with RSVP
FEATURING:
༄ Breath Work, a dirty air opera (film by Nina Sarnelle)
༄ Sumapi, a shadow puppet performance (play by Solstice Theatre IE)
༄ Air quality in the Inland Empire, a discussion with the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ)
In partnership with Building Resilient Communities.
We will do some collective breathing, watch a film and a shadow play, and discuss the impacts of air pollution in our community. How might we come together to work for clean air?
Sumapi (10 mins) is a Tagalog-English play about a “Global Mothers Climate Crisis Hotline” worker based in the Philippines who helps a black mother in Colton. An homage to all those mothering in climate crisis, this play is written by Nicole Dumaguindin featuring poetry by Sarah Randall.
Breath Work (40 min) is an experimental opera that explores breath as resistance. Part documentary, part performative ritual, it was created by a group of 13 local community members aged 11-65 in Long Beach, CA. This area is home to massive oil production as well as one of the largest ports in the world, where 25% of imported goods enter the US by sea. In the film, shipping infrastructure, railyards, freeways and oil refineries provide a striking backdrop for scenes of solidarity and grief, weaving together personal stories of respiratory disease and environmental racism with collective acts of defiance.
(Click here for up-to-date info about other Breath Work screenings in the LA area.)
Created in collaboration with Long Beach Forward, with support from the California Arts Council, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Anonymous Was a Woman Environmental Art Fund.
ACCESSIBILITY
This event is held at a community farm with relatively flat terrain and mulch paths. A restroom is available on site with no stairs and standard door clearance. Free street parking is available throughout the neighborhood. For questions or accommodation requests, please contact us at sandalwoodfarmandsanctuary@gmail.com.
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Sandalwood Farm & Sanctuary is a community-rooted space in Rialto, CA, where food sovereignty, ecological healing, and cultural wellness converge. We center BIPOC communities in the Inland Empire through hands-on farming, wellness programming, and intergenerational learning — drawing on ancestral wisdom to nourish whole people and living land. Every seed we plant is an act of restoration.
Solstice Theatre IE is a grassroots QBIPOC theatre company uplifting stories of land, diaspora, and community empowerment through shadow puppetry play festivals themed around environment, history, and diversity in the Inland Empire. They draw inspiration from “Theatre of the Oppressed”, “Playback Theatre”, and their own ancestral storytelling heritage.
The Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ) works alongside frontline communities in the Inland Empire to advance environmental justice, build community power, and advocate for healthy, sustainable neighborhoods through organizing, education, and policy change.
Nina Sarnelle (they/them) is an artist who makes research projects, participatory performances, music composition, video, and many experiments in pedagogy and collectivity. They facilitate improvisational somatic & vocal workshops, often exploring conditions of neocolonialism, environmental injustice and labor exploitation in strange and intimate ways. They’ve received major awards from the California Arts Council, the Heinz Endowments and Pittsburgh Foundation, the Anonymous Was a Woman Environmental Art Grant, and a fellowship at Metabolic Studio. They recently had a solo video show at theNew Museum (NY), and have also shown at Whitechapel Gallery (London), Hammer Museum (LA), Getty Center (LA), Ballroom Marfa (TX), MoMA (NY), Istanbul Modern (Turkey), Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (Berlin), Black Cube (Denver), UNSW Galleries (Sydney), Project 88 (Mumbai), Mwoods (Beijing) among others. www.ninasarnelle.com