Of the many delightful timbres that colour the underlying soul of Studio Ghibli films, there is one noticeable one of gratuitous being, in the gentlest yet intentional way—Hayao Miyazaki's characters often sit ideal for stretching periods in fields dotted with seasonal flowers, as blades of grass gently sway with the wind, or look far into a dreamy, orange-drunk horizon, deep and rich in thought and stillness. These moments do not necessarily further the storyline, yet divulge a realistic way of life, just as the characters live and are. These intentional, very tangible spaces in between can be best described with the Japanese concept of Ma (間): a gap in time, a pause or emptiness in space that finds ethos and practices the profound charm of a persuasive nothingness which holds philosophical meaning.

We could also think of it in terms of music—without breaks or pauses in between chords, notes, and pitches, there would be constant, frenetic noise—many call it rhythm. In life, we may perhaps equate it with the ‘negative’ moments that fill up the quotidian—negative, not in a pessimistic way, but as recesses, a unit of emptiness that takes up as much space and significance as the tangibility that fills it—the gentle, momentary pauses between conversations as we breathe; the micro-moment when we chance upon a butterfly landing on a flowering sapling, the stillness of silence as our eyes shut close before sleeping; the briefest stretch of time between claps: these intervals or ‘emptiness’ in space and time is a powerful, all-pervading essence of what makes and perfumes life on earth. As a way of existing, these pauses are invaluable.

How is this liminal space occupied? How can artistic or architectural gestures partake in this opportunity to evoke harmony, balance, and beauty, guided by this emptiness and silence?

With a reflective understanding and deep appreciation of the spaces in between, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art) embraces the liminal with Breath of an Architect, an exhibition created specifically by Bijoy Jain, the founder of Studio Mumbai in India. On view from December 9, 2023 – April 21, 2024, the exhibition unravels in a series of slow, tranquil pockets that uphold and exercise contemplation and the beauty of reverie, exploring the myriad relations unfolding inaudibly between art, architecture, and materiality. The atmosphere meditates as much as it showcases, as the entire personality of the show converses with Jean Nouvel’s iconic building. The Indian architect intends for the exhibition to unfold as ‘a physical and emotional experience,’ as a succinct invitation ‘to breathe, to wander in quietude and rediscover silence.’

The Intimate and the Universal

Here, the artworks and architectural exhibits on display emphasise suggestion instead of explicit representation, allowing those who interact with them to pause, engage, and fill in details on their own. These spaces of retrospection, aided by forms and materials that are ambiguous in being, are simply implied, more than being explicitly descriptive, akin to the attributions implied of the weight of weightlessness, or the sound of silence.

“Silence has a sound, we hear its resonance in ourselves. This sound connects all living beings, it is the breath of life. It is synchronous in all of us. Silence, time, and space are eternal, as [are] water, air, and light our elemental construct. This abundance of sensory phenomena, dreams, memory, imagination, emotions, and intuition, [stems] from this pool of experiences, embedded in the corners of our eyes, in the soles of our feet, in the lobes of our ears, in the timbre of our voices, in the whisper of our breath and in the palm of our hand,” Jain expounds.

Exploring the importance of what is not present as much as what is, Breath of an Architect, curated by Hervé Chandès and Juliette Lecorne, unravels with low-slung, humble, almost receding forms and visuals that generate emotional pauses, embodying the shared sensibilities of interconnectedness of the intimate and universal, informed and shown through the choice of materials that profuse the making of things, and the subsequent living of them.

“Our presence, our being, must dissolve.” – Bijoy Jain, Founder of Studio Mumbai

Deeply affecting, the power of inaction or practised patience is unveiled in the exhibition. As Jain’s oeuvre reflects a thoughtful concern for the bonds forged between humankind and nature, where time and gesture remain essential, the show also upholds his ideology as an architect: of considering the making of things as primal, while staying mindfully immersive and attentive to our environment and its inhabitants, as well as the materials we use, to nurture and present an ecosystem of space, architecture, and humans, as a beautifully inclusive one.

A patience in the occurring

A narration of patience is observed through a simple arrangement of architectural fragments—the sensory experience convenes light and shadow, lightness and gravity, wood, brick, earth, stone, and water, shaped by hand and resonating with the rhythm of breathing. “Stone and terracotta sculptures, facades of traditional Indian dwellings, rendered panels, lines of pigment drawn with thread, bamboo structures inspired by tazias—funerary monuments carried on the shoulders in memory of a Saint during Shiite Muslim processions—these transitory, ephemeral structures present a world that is both infinite and intimate, and carry us to places both near and far,” the Fondation describes.

Jain, on the behest of the general exhibition curator Chandès, also invited Hu Liu, a Chinese painter living in Beijing, and Turkish-born Danish ceramist Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye based in Paris, France, to join him in creating the Breath of an Architect. What followed was a reverence exercised by all three, to the “ritual mastery of gesture, to resonance, and dialogue with material; they share the same ethos and sensibility,” they continue.

For Bijoy Jain, the physical world we inhabit is a palimpsest of our cultural evolution. Humanity moves through a landscape in constant evolution, one whose successive writings are intertwined. In Breath of an Architect, we are offered a glimpse, however fleeting, of architecture’s sensorial emanations, the intuitive forces that bind us to the elements and our emotional relationship with space. – Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain

Considering paintings as portals, Liu’s monochrome black drawings are articulated in graphite, and indulge in iterations of the same movement, line by line, exposing the very “essence of natural elements: grass caressed by the wind, the rolling of the waves, or the silhouette of tree branches, conveying a timeless solemnity,” as the Fondation relays. Even though each drawing’s entire surface seems to be taken over monochromia, her works are not ‘black’—instead, the artist prefers the term xuán, which can relay connotations of meaning ‘dark’ or ‘mysterious,’ while conjuring the philosophies of Laozi and Zhuangzi, encouraging “carefree wandering,” “inaction” (無 為, wúwéi), and a “natural spontaneity” underlined by genuine quietude and an absence of thought.

“The spatial and temporal changes caused by the growth of a life-form is marvellous and magical, like the creation of artwork; they are all driven by the forces generated from the primitive power of life,” the artist relays. A drawing inscribed directly on the ground is reminiscent of the Wagh Bakri, (the tiger and goat game) and invites onlookers to participate with their presence.

In conjunction, Siesbye’s ceramic works culminate her great skill and dexterity, while remaining in concentrated dialogue with clay, satiating weightlessness through the experience. Over the years, “she has perfected an intense dialogue with material, through ritual mastery of gesture. Rigour, repetition, and patience are marks of quality for this artist, who from the beginning, found inspiration in the cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Anatolia,” the Fondation conveys.

In conversation with clay, the artist spotlights the vitality and significance of water as a basis for erecting earth, just as it is in architecture, “Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye’s ceramics are curvaceous, thin-walled, wide-rimmed bowls that invite the viewer to contemplate the silence of the space held within,” they explain. A certain latency empowers and is embodied within each bowl, demonstrating “a paradoxical stance between grounded equilibrium and ethereal ascension,” they continue.

Placing the human at the centre of each endeavour, Jain exhibits Siesbye’s almost sensual, trance-filled pieces on a plinth made from miniature hand-fired bricks which are carefully assembled, each brick held with a mortar of finely powdered burnt clay mixed with lime and water.

Bijoy Jain’s exhibition Breath of an Architect significantly broadens how we see architectural practice, providing another opportunity to question architecture as a paradigm for our relationship [with] the world. – Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain

Believing architecture succinctly shapes the world we live in, and as witnessed in the Breath of an Architect, Fondation Cartier’s programming has perpetually been conceived, to a certain extent, by keeping architecture in mind. It often requests and collaborates with global architects to design the architecture of its exhibitions: for instance, Mexican architect Mauricio Rocha conceived the exhibition design for the retrospective of Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, while Lina Ghotmeh (Lebanon) has been invited to imagine the exhibition of Olga de Amaral’s work, scheduled for 2024.

For almost four decades now, Fondation Cartier has maintained its commitment to the architectural discipline by also inviting international architects to present solo exhibitions showcasing their own practices and ethos, shows that richly converse with Nouvel’s building. These include Junya Ishigami (Japan), Jean Nouvel (France), and Diller Scofidio + Renfro (United States).

As they explain, “Jean Nouvel designed the glass building that houses it as a true creative space for artists, who continue to use it as a tool for experimentation and to foster a dialogue with architecture. Cohabitating with a garden that has since become an emblem of the building in the same way as its architecture, along with the absence of fixed exhibition walls, transparency, and the space’s potentiality virtuality are hallmarks of this building by Jean Nouvel, inaugurated in 1994, and today considered an icon of Parisian architecture.”

Several architects have also created monumental installations, such as the work of Lebbeus Woods for the exhibition organised by Paul Virilio Unknown Quantity in 2002, and also in 2018, when Bolivian architect of Aymara origin, Freddy Mamani, imagined a ballroom for the exhibition Southern Geometries, from Mexico to Patagonia.

With Breath of an Architect, the Fondation Cartier is also publishing a richly illustrated book designed by Japanese art director Taku Satoh. It promises to offer its readers an 'unprecedented exploration' of Jain’s aesthetic and philosophy, along with deeply philosophical conversations between Jain and Satoh, Siesbye, and Hu Liu, unveiling affinities with the architect’s work.

"Studio Mumbai’s architecture shows a deep concern for the relationship between humanity and nature, and reflects the importance of a place’s spirit, its genius loci. Each of the studio’s creations, whether furniture or architecture, is founded in water, air, and light. The projects are developed considering the location in which they are established, mindful of the climate and seasons, and draw on traditional and ancestral skills, materials, and local construction techniques. The Studio places importance on economy of means, stemming from limited resources and places the human at the center of every project undertaken," the Fondation relays.

In conversation with Satoh, Jain shares, “Made from the sound of one’s breath.” Everything about the space and the way of occupying it—from the making here in the studio in Mumbai, to the making of the exhibition at the Fondation Cartier—will refer to the sound of breath. It’s the only sound we will experience… The entire space is thought around the breath—inhalation and exhalation—but also around the body, the hand, the heart, and the mind. Or imagination. Nothing else,” and “I really hope that whoever visits this space, you, me, or anyone else will experience that landscape—that boundary between body and space, inside and outside—as a real experience. Our presence, our being, must dissolve.”