Nov 2018 – late 2019 Everyone breathes. From a baby’s first cries to a dying gasp, breath is an ever-present companion on the journey through life. Breathing isn’t just a biological process. It enables us to communicate, to speak, to … Read more…
24-26 Oct 2017, Durham – 10am-4pm each day We’ll once again be hosting a stand at Celebrate Science, Durham University’s free family festival. Visit us in the marquee on Palace Green, the heart of Durham’s World Heritage Site, to explore some of … Read more…
19-20 August 2017, Edinburgh Feeling ‘peched oot’ from rushing around the Festival? Pause for a lungful and help Sarah McLusky and Mary Robson create an illuminated encyclopaedia exploring the language and history of breath and air. Contribute your words, definitions, … Read more…
The header image shows a viola, also called heartsease. Music therapist and writer Kate Binnie writes: I am in the hospital. Cardiology ward. My mother sits on the edge of the hospital bed, her swollen and shiny legs look as if … Read more…
Artist Caroline Wright writes: Earlier this year, a two-day project called Space to Breathe took place at Somerset House in London, a building that is located in one of the most highly polluted areas of the city. Commissioned by the … Read more…
The header image shows a representation of the three wise monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. A parody of these monkeys (each with a different injury, bandaged or in a cast) can be found in … Read more…
We challenged visitors to Durham University’s Celebrate Science marquee to do something unusual with their breath – either use it to make art or break a world record! Over three days (25-27 October 2016) our stand welcomed 1000 visitors. Our … Read more…
25-27 Oct 2016, Durham – 10am-4pm each day This year we’ll be hosting a stand at Celebrate Science, Durham University’s free family festival. Visit us in the marquee on Palace Green, the heart of Durham’s World Heritage Site, to explore some of … Read more…
David Scoins (lifelong runner, sometime sports teacher) spent seven years in China; a year or more in each of Xi’an, Nanjing, Beijing and Guangzhou, and shorter periods in other cities. The smallest of these cities has a population far bigger than … Read more…
Kate Binnie, yoga teacher and music therapist, writes: In his brilliant book Being Mortal (2015) Atul Gawande calls for all healthcare professionals working with patients at the end of life to “help people to end their stories on their own … Read more…
In an essay that first appeared in Atrium: The Report of the Northwestern Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program (Spring 2011, p. 6), professor of English Joanne Jacobson writes: My accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, … Read more…
In an essay that first appeared in Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction (Spring 2011, pp. 117-118), professor of English Joanne Jacobson writes: What lives, breathes. Listen. It’s not my strokes that I hear when I swim, not muscles working through choppy water, … Read more…
Jess Farr-Cox, Life of Breath Project Manager (Bristol) and her father David Scoins, lifelong runner (green vest, above), sometime sports teacher and resident in China 2007-2014, write together: We need air to function. If we are to function when doing … Read more…
Susan M D Carr, art therapist at the Prospect Hospice and PhD Student at Loughborough University, writes: I was in a CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) training session the other day, about to assist a ‘collapsed person’ in the form of a … Read more…
Anna Magnusson, writer and freelance radio producer, writes: Air. It’s not a scientific word. It’s poetic. It has many meanings and shades. It’s a heart word. A word that you feel, a word that holds memory and experience and emotion. … Read more…
Project Manager (Bristol) on the Life of Breath project Jess Farr-Cox writes: The first meeting of the core project team (Breathing Space) was in October 2014, in the respiratory unit of Southmead Hospital, Bristol. We were filmed throughout the day by Barry Gibb … Read more…