Ohan Breiding: Belly of a Glacier
MASS MoCA, North Adams
Through December 14, 2025
To dress a wound from the light that
shines from it (Belly of a Glacier)
111 Giclée Prints on Fine Art Luster Paper
128.55 in x 266.93 in / 326.5 cm x 678 cm
To dress a wound from the light that
shines from it (Belly of a Glacier) [detail]
111 Giclée Prints on Fine Art Luster Paper
128.55 in x 266.93 in / 326.5 cm x 678 cm
To dress a wound from the light that
shines from it (Belly of a Glacier) [detail]
111 Giclée Prints on Fine Art Luster Paper
128.55 in x 266.93 in / 326.5 cm x 678 cm
MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams, in collaboration with The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA), presents the exhibition Ohan Breiding: Belly of a Glacier, a series of photographs and video that ruminates on the imminent loss of the Rhône glacier, amplifying the current state of climate emergency while expressing the intimate entanglement of human and environmental well-being.
In 2019, Iceland constructed the first memorial to mark the death of its Okjökull glacier. Since then, funerals have been held around the world to mark the melting of glacier bodies. Consisting of an experimental documentary film and a photographic installation, Breiding’s Belly of a Glacier captures the efforts of the residents of Obergoms, Switzerland, to drape the nearby Rhône Glacier with thermal blankets to insulate it from rising temperatures. Despite these hope-filled actions of ecological care, scientists predict the Rhône will have fully melted by 2050.
“Ohan Breiding’s work is a powerful, intimate portrait of a dying glacier,” said Susan Cross, MASS MoCA Senior Curator. “The stunning photographs and video make the loss feel very personal—as it should, given that we are part of the ecosystem being forever transformed by climate change.”
Belly of a Glacier, 2024
HD video, with sound, 32:55 min.
Courtesy of the artist and OCHI Gallery, Los Angeles
Belly of a Glacier, 2024
HD video, with sound, 32:55 min.
Courtesy of the artist and OCHI Gallery, Los Angeles
Belly of a Glacier, 2024
HD video, with sound, 32:55 min.
Courtesy of the artist and OCHI Gallery, Los Angeles
The film documents the community at the National Science Foundation’s Ice Core Facility in Lakewood, Colorado, who are preserving ancient ice cores for future generations. Ice is like a time capsule, storing atmospheric debris, including volcanic ash and greenhouse gasses, that can tell us about major natural disasters as well as resulting human activity over thousands over years. Breiding’s project connects acts of mourning to ongoing practices of care that strive to protect the ice — a material that contains both remnants of the past and the conditions of a future world.
“WCMA and MASS MoCA joining together to present Ohan Breiding’s deeply moving and thought-provoking installation exemplifies the best of what our Berkshire arts ecosystem can provide to our visitors and local community,” said Pamela Franks, WCMA Class of 1956 Director. “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate across institutions in this way.”
ARTIST OHAN BREIDING
Ohan Breiding is a Swiss-American artist, raised in a Swiss village and living between Brooklyn, N.Y., and Williamstown, MA. They work with photography, photographic and filmic archives, and video in a collaborative practice that reinterprets historical events, putting the past into a meaningful transformative relation with the present. They employ a trans-feminist lens to the discussion of ecological care to amplify the systemic failures and violence of the Anthropocene.
Ohan Breiding has presented their work at numerous museums, galleries, and film festivals including ICA LA, Photo LA, the Armory Center for the Arts, LAMAG, LAXART, Human Resources, Oakland Museum of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Haus N Athens, Sharjah Art Foundation, IKOB Museum of Contemporary Art, Kunsthaus Zürich, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (Buffalo, N.Y.), Frac des Pays de la Loire and Oceanside Museum (as part of the Getty’s PST Art — Pacific Standard Time).
Ohan Breiding is a 2024 A.I.R. Fellow, a 2024 FIAR resident, a 2024 Triangle Artist Resident, a 2021 TBA (Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary) Academy Ocean Space Fellow, a 2019 Millay Colony Resident and a 2018 Shandaken: Storm King resident. They are the recipient of the 1945 World Fellowship Award, the Hellman Award, the SIFF (Swiss International Film Festival) Award for The Rebel Body, a short film made with Shoghig Halajian and the participation of Silvia Federici, the Rema Hort Mann Emerging Artist Award, and the DAAD Award. Their practice has been written about in Artforum, Art in America, BOMB, e-flux, Hyperallergic and Whitewall.
Ohan Breiding is an assistant professor in the Art Department at Williams College and is represented by OCHI Gallery in Los Angeles.
MASS MoCA
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
1040 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247
Ohan Breiding: Belly of a Glacier
MASS MoCA, North Adams, February - December 14, 2025
