Breathe, a multi-platform project, responds to the broader context of air and how our breathing has changed due to the long process of human evolution and the fact that everything breathes, and everything is interconnected through breath.

Commissioned by the EU Commission for the exhibition ‘Datami’, the film weaves together narratives of studies in human breath, medicine and ancient plant remedies to explore the idea of coexistence in a world moved by invisible networks. Research was conducted in response to Wilhelm Pfeffer’s chronophotographic experiment involving the stages of plant growth. The project was graciously supported by Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden, for the exhibition Of Plants and People. 

The work evolved into a project about the importance of the air we breathe and the unmistakable threat to plants and nature we face in the wake of climate change. Breath, after all, is a symbiosis between man and environment, man and plants. 

Combining the breath of humans and plants, the project was divided into two phases of exploration and gathering:

 HUMAN BREATH – 50 humans phase 1

Siobhan McDonald collaborated with sound artist David Stalling to create an open call to record people breathing at Trinity College Herbarium, The Botany Department. The sound of the participants inhale and exhale formed a sound piece, which was then performed at Science Gallery Dublin on the 12th December 2018.

PLANT BREATH – 50 plants phase 2

On the same day Siobhan McDonald and David Stalling made recordings in off-site locations from:

-        The root systems of two felled Oregon Maple trees, sister trees in the front square of Trinity College,

-        50 plants from the Physic Garden, Trinity College.

The project was supported by Trinity Creative Award: Future Breath

Sound composition: David Stalling: Stereo sound, duration 3’35” incorporating plant, tree and human breath recordings. Christopher Ash (film editor)