By Tobias Lauritzen
1. Why are you an artist?
I am an artist because it is a necessity for me to explore what it means to be human. Art allows me to express something that reaches beyond myself and create new ways of understanding the world. It stems from an inner necessity and a desire to explore existence – both the visible and the invisible.
2. What inspires you?
I am inspired by the body, the breath and the basic conditions for being alive. Spirituality, philosophy and the relationship between man and the world are also central sources. Inspiration can come as something from outside – as a kind of gift – but it is rooted in a deep, bodily and sensual experience. Among my most important sources of inspiration are: Emanuele Coccia, Hartmut Rosa, Antonio Damasio, Clarice Lispector and Donna Haraway.
3. How do you work and what do you always need?
I work performatively and bodily, often in long-term, repetitive and ritualized processes. My practice is based on presence, rhythm and awareness of the body and breath. The most important thing I need is my body, my attention and an openness to the process – without judging it. I try to concretize everything that we don’t pay much attention to. Often it’s the things that we take for granted, the way we speak, the way we breathe. But what does it mean to have a body, and what is one’s relationship with the body? When someone says, What did you do today?, I answer: I have breathed, it is life that has made me today.
Sophie Dupont BREATHE, installation Holstebro Kunstmuseum, where the exhibition was on display until June 7. Photo: Sofus Graae
4. What is the best advice you have received as an artist?
To create from an inner necessity – even when it feels wrong, vulnerable or embarrassing. And to have patience and refrain from judging your own process, but instead let passion and freedom drive the work forward.
5. Would you like to tell us about a moment that has influenced your practice?
At the age of 14, I became paralyzed in the legs, which changed my relationship with my body and breath. This experience has had a profound influence on my work and my ongoing investigation of the body as both a physical and mental state.
6. How is your art a response to society?
My art functions as a silent resistance to a society characterized by speed, unrest and disconnection. Through slowness, silence and presence, I create space for reflection and to reconnect with ourselves and each other.
7. How do you balance private life and practice?
The boundary between my life and my practice is fluid, because my own life, my body and my experiences are a central part of the work. At the same time, it requires awareness and presence to be able to be in both – both as a human being and as an artist. My works arise from lived life, I am always in the process of registering.
Sophie Dupont, BREATHE, 2025. Photo: Sofus Graae.
8. Do you have a dream work that has not yet been realized?
My work is a continuous investigation, and I don't see one final work as the goal. The dream is to continue creating spaces where we can experience new ways of being and connecting with each other and the world. Because everything around us is changeable, so if you've figured something out, you have to figure something new out again tomorrow.
9. How do you deal with a creative block?
By returning to the body, the breath and the sensual presence. By not judging the process and accepting that creativity also requires patience. The work must come from an inner necessity, not from pressure. I am inspired by a blockade. Being in emptiness and irritation and loss, that is an inspiration for me. Because inspiration is life and breath. I have not invented myself as a human being, I live within a framework, I would like to be able to fly, but I will not be able to. I cannot win over my art, if I have a blockade, then I have to stop working. That is also why I am making the work “Rest with me.” I believe that you should listen to your body.
10. You are current with the exhibition Breathe in Sorø, which runs from July 3 to October 18, would you tell us how you have worked with something as immaterial as breath and presence when you try to make it visible or sensory in a physical work?
I work with breath as something that is invisible in itself, but which constantly leaves traces. In my works I do not try to illustrate breath, but to register it. Through repetition, minimal movements and duration, it becomes possible to translate something immaterial into a physical experience – as a marking, a surface, a displacement.
The body becomes a tool, where the breath functions as both material and method. It is about making what we normally do not see sensuous – not as something spectacular, but as a silent presence. As is also described in my practice, it is precisely in this process that “the invisible becomes sensuous”, and where the breath leaves traces as a sign that we are present in the world.
Sophie Dupont, BREATHE. Photo by Sofus Graae
sophie dupont
Sophie Dupont (b. 1975) is a Danish visual and performance artist based in Copenhagen and Paris. Her practice revolves around presence, peace, and the body as both a medium and space for change, often with the breath as a central tool.
She works cross-media with performance, installation, sculpture and painting, and her works often unfold in slow, repetitive and meditatively anchored formats. Dupont is educated at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the London Contemporary Dance School and has exhibited widely in Denmark and abroad.
Her works are represented at SMK, Kunsten (Aalborg) and Malmö Art Museum. Her works have been purchased by the New Carlsberg Foundation & the Danish National Art Foundation.