People's Architecture
	BIO  |  QUOTE     SONG DONG Song Dong's Breathing, a moving performance he carried out in front of Tiananmen in 1996, demonstrated his maturity as a politically minded avant-garde artist. It was a cold night at the beginning of 1996. Holiday lights outlined the familiar contour of Tiananmen in the distance; the temperature was minus 7° Celsius. Song Dong lay prone and motionless in the deserted Square, breathing onto the cement pavement for 40 minutes. On the ground before his mouth a thin layer of ice gradually formed, which seemed to increase in thickness and solidity with each breath. When he left the square, the ice was still shimmering like an elusive islet in an ocean of concrete. It disappeared before the next morning, leaving no visible trace. in: Wu Hung, Remaking Beijing - Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space, Reaktion Books, London, 2005