Film Wave of Breath – Whispering Seaweed 2020

A collaboration between drummer Will Calhoun and artist Margot Berkman is not simply a meeting of disciplines…

It is a convergence of rhythms. 

Of breath

Of tide

For the film ‘Wave of Breath’, Calhoun’s percussive language and Berkman’s visual universe merge into a shared meditation on the ocean as a living, breathing organism. His drums do not accompany the images; they move like currents beneath them. 

Each pulse echoes the unseen respiration of seaweed forests, each silence holds the weight of deep water. What emerges is not a soundtrack, but a dialogue — between sound and sculpture, between body and sea.

This collaboration extends into Berkman’s monumental sculptures ‘Whispering Seaweed’, created in public area next to the Cobra Museum in the Netherlands. Rising 4.5 meters high, the sculptural forms evoke towering seaweeds — the quiet lungs of the planet. In the evening, subtle illumination animates their surfaces, creating the illusion that they are gently swaying underwater. They appear to breathe.

Calhoun’s rhythmic sensibility resonates within these forms. Just as seaweed moves with invisible tides, his drumming responds to forces that cannot be seen but can be felt. Together, the work embodies the Japanese philosophy of ‘ichi go ichi e’ — one time, one encounter — reminding us that each breath, each moment of attention to the natural world, is unrepeatable.

At its heart, this collaboration is about listening. 

Listening to the ocean. 

Listening to the fragile systems that sustain more than half of the oxygen we breathe. 

Listening to each other across disciplines and continents.

In ‘Wave of Breath’ and ‘Whispering Seaweed’, sound becomes sculpture and sculpture becomes rhythm. 

The sea is no longer background — it is presence. 

It is heart…pulse. It is breath.

Wave of Breath

11 maart 2011 – Fukushima Japan

Deze film markeert de onthulling van de beeldengroep Whispering Seaweed in de openbare ruimte en de tentoonstelling Wave of Breath in het Cobra Museum, waarin curator Katja Rodenburg een keuze laat zien uit haar veelzijdige werk.