A magazine focusing on the intersection
of art and action to create greater
social, racial and economic justice
“please, please, please I can't breathe”
- Last words of George Floyd
“We can try to make it so everyone can breathe“
- Koon Woon - Co-founder of Breathe
March 2, 2026
Published weekly on Mondays
“This is about honoring the lives of two heroes, Renée and Alex, defending our First Amendment rights, and art as dissent,” says Bryan Buckley, a film director with hungryman productions, which produced the performance.
On Monday, February 16, Presidents’ Day, 22 professional dancers gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. There, they performed a 90-second contemporary dance, titled The ResistDance, choreographed by Steffens and performed by artist collective First Amendment Troop. The work honors the lives of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents during enforcement operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in January. The dancers then performed the piece outside the recently renamed Trump Kennedy Center. (Excerpted from Dance Magazine)
“… I think that consciousness is at stake in a lot of what’s going on. One of the things Trump has done is occupy a significant chunk of our attention every single day. Our consciousness is being polluted, and protecting ourselves against that at the same time we preserve the ability to act politically is a difficult balancing act. Consciousness is a very precious realm. It’s the realm of our privacy and our freedom to think. So I think we need some kind of consciousness hygiene, particularly at this moment, where this one politician has figured out ways to command our attention. Consciousness is more relevant now than it even was 10 or 20 years ago, as something to think about, protect and nurture.”
Excerpted from an interview with Michael Pollan by David Marchese in the February 15, 2026 issue of the New York times Magazine
(Editors note: We think the art in BREATHE contributes to what Michael Pollan calls “consciousness hygiene”,
and we wanted to share his thinking with you.)
Michael Pollan
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A column for you to share the actions you are taking to resist the erosion of our democratic institutions and practices and the rise of authoritarianism. We hope that sharing your stories will provide ideas and inspiration for others to take whatever action they are willing and able to take. Every individual action we take is part of a broad collective effort for justice. Please keep your stories to 150 words max and email to breatheeveryone@gmail.com. Feel free to include a photo of the action taken if appropriate.
Easement Watercolor by Michael Moreth
New Language by Lew Jones
AccomplishedWatercolor by Michael Moreth
Social Metaphor by Lew Jones
AccomplishedWatercolor by Michael Moreth
'Hard Work and Good Intentions' by Lew Jones
By Phillip Shabazz
The riot had no name— the sky cracked its throat on siren-song. Asphalt learned to swallow whole. A sneaker—pink, child-sized—spins mid-air mid-cry mid-century. The streets don't burn. They are burning. They have always burned in the tense I don't teach. Glass doesn't shatter. It speaks in the language of aftermath, in the grammar of never-arrived-home. Listen: a stop sign is a grave marker if I know how to read it.
Aaron. Not theory. Chipped tooth. Tic Tacs rattling in his pocket like dice like a rosary like evidence. They said gun. They said description. They said the footage—but footage is just another word for what we choose to frame, what we crop from the shot. His hoodie too bright. His skin the wrong aperture for mercy. The corner store still hums his laugh back, that frequency the news can't tune to, won't hold, drops like a call from a country with no extradition treaty for the dead. I saw the stain before the story.