Our breath is formless and invisible — lost to us once exhaled — unless it is enveloped and given shape with a balloon, a soap film or water.

Catch Your Breath is an experience where the visitor captures their own breath as a bubble in a tank of water using high-speed flash photography. The work toured Australia between 2017 and 2019 with the Experimenta Make Sense International Triennial of Media Art as the Catch Your Breath Project.

Data collected from the Experimenta tour (date, time and location of capture) is being used in the You Are Here project to consider the question “If we could track the air from each captured breath as it was carried by the wind around the world, where is it now?”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

First shown at the Every Breath exhibition at The Lock-Up, Newcastle, December 2016 to January 2017, where around 2000 visitors blew a total of almost 5000 unique and beautiful bubbles.

Following a one-day exhibition at the Brisbane QUT Robotronica exhibition where 420 breaths were captured, the work is touring with the Experimenta Make Sense International Triennial of Media Art from 2017 to 2020. The concept for the project has been expanded with the ability to ‘share’ breaths online and to build an archive of the collective breath of an expected 20,000 participants over the course of the tour. The project will explore the idea of a portrait of the national breath as a means of drawing individuals together. Shared breaths and more details about the project can be seen at catch-your-breath.com.

An image from the project has been selected as part of an exhibition touring the UK that explores how the breath is understood and experienced.

Installation views of Robotronica and Experimenta (Melbourne) exhibitions:

Installation views of The Lock Up original exhibition: