
- Art
Monica Duncan: Breathing as a stone

Presented in the Sunroom, Breathing as a stone is a video, sculpture and performance installation that draws inspiration from the small but resilient plants in Wave Hill’s Alpine House, and the history of camouflage studies based on rock outcroppings in Van Cortlandt Park. By incorporating geological materials like granite and quartzite—known for their strength and resistance to weathering—Duncan’s installation becomes a framework for adaptive strategies that oscillate between visibility, support, and concealment, central to broader ideas of identity, originality, becoming, and social change. Through her physical embodiment, the artist also explores what it is like to be “someone or something’s rock,” or a system of support. Performative text scores invite viewers into this exploration of how non-human embodiment can guide us toward strategies of resilience, mutualism, and community support.
Additional Credits:
Performance for Camera: Elena Demyanenko, Johanna Meyer and Monica Duncan
Sound Design: Senem Pirler and Monica Duncan
Sound Mixing: Senem Pirler
Horticulture Consultant: Sandra Schaller (Wave Hill, Alpine House)
Saturday, August 2, 2:30PM, Meet the Artist: Breathing as a stone for Plant Contouring Workshop: Embodying Plants through Movement.
Organized by Curator of Visual Arts Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger, the Sunroom Project Space is an open call opportunity for New York-area artists to develop and exhibit a site-specific project as a solo exhibition. The 2025 applications were reviewed by a panel of arts professionals including Jordany Genao, a Dominican interdisciplinary artist and educator; Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel, an artist whose practice unfolds performatively through creative experiences within the quotidian, and the founding director of The Interior Beauty Salon, an organism at the intersection of creativity and healing; and Gugelberger.
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Monica Duncan
Monica Duncan
Monica Duncan is a Riverdale, Bronx-based video and performance artist whose time-based work investigates sensory perceptions, queer potentiality, and relationality to our more-than human world. Her video and performance work has been presented at Hebbel am Ufer HAU1, Berlin; Franfurt Lab, zietraumexit, Mannheim and ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, all in Germany; Warszawa, Warsaw, Poland; La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain; Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, CA; Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film, Video & Music Festival, Malaysia; Athens International Film + Video Festival, Greece; Chicago Underground Film Festival, IL; Ann Arbor Film Festival, MI; and The Kitchen and Hallwalls Buffalo, both in New York. Duncan has been an artist-in-residence at the Experimental Television Center, Institute for Electronic Arts, Binghampton; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; and Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, all in NY; PACT Zollverein, Essen, Germany and Scena Robocza, Poznań, Poland, among others. She earned a BFA from the NYSCC School of Art and Design at Alfred University, NY; anMFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego; and an MA in Choreography and Performance at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies, Justus Liebig University Gießen, Germany. Learn more about the artist at https://monicaduncan.net.
Photo: Dean Erdmann