Higugma (Breath. 息) is a site-specific installation by Filipino-Canadian artist Lani Maestro (born 1957), who lives and works between France and Canada. Maestro is known for her quiet, poetic practice that engages the body, memory, and the senses. Her work frequently explores themes of longing, intimacy, loss, and the subtle emotional registers that shape human experience. Through minimal gestures and carefully calibrated environments, she creates contemplative spaces that invite viewers to slow down, listen, and become acutely aware of their own presence within a shared space.
Presented during the Mixed Bathing World art triennial in Japan, Higugma (Breath. 息) incorporated a series of twenty drawings created specifically for the site. To conceive the work, Maestro immersed herself deeply in a nagaya, a one-hundred-year-old traditional Japanese wooden house. The architecture and atmosphere of the house became central to the development of the artwork, serving as both inspiration and material framework. The drawings were produced using the same materials that constitute the house itself. Maestro collaborated with traditional craftsmen—local artisans experienced in constructing such dwellings—to create the wooden frames, and she drew on shoji paper, the paper traditionally used for sliding doors.
The resulting installation functioned as an extension of the house itself—less an exhibition placed within a space than an additional architectural presence, akin to furniture or structural elements integrated into the dwelling. As Maestro has emphasized, the house was not merely a container for the work, but an essential component of it. Separated from its architectural context, the artwork would fundamentally change in meaning, underscoring the inseparable relationship between place, material, and breath that defines Higugma (Breath. 息).
Lani Maestro has exhibited widely in international contexts, with solo and group exhibitions at major institutions including the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto. She has participated in numerous international biennials, including the Venice Biennale, as well as significant exhibitions across Europe, North America, and Asia. Across these varied contexts, Maestro has developed a distinctive artistic language grounded in attentiveness, stillness, and sensory perception, consistently exploring how space, breath, and memory shape human experience.
Higugma (Breath. 息) was commissioned by Beppu Project NPO for the inaugural Beppu Contemporary Art Festival: Mixed Bathing World Triennale in Oita, Japan. The project was produced by Junya Yamaide and directed by Serizawa Takashi, with Keith Whittle serving as advisor and assistant director. This festival is notable for its engagement with site-specific and time-based media art, situated within the rich cultural and natural landscape of Beppu and the wider Oita region.
