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…
Life of Breath PhD student Tina Williams writes: The 2017 Research Without Borders Festival showcase exhibition ran at Bristol’s Colston Hall on May 12th. I, along with ninety-nine other research students, took part in this engaging research exhibition, with the aim … Read more…
The header shows Ascent of Lunardi’s Balloon from St George’s Fields, London, 1788-90 by J. C. Ibbetson, which will be part of the Royal West of England Academy exhibition ‘Air: Visualising the Invisible in British Art 1768-2017’, as does this … 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…
Dr Megan Wainwright is an international collaborator on the Life of Breath project. She is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Cape Town (Division of Social and Behavioural Sciences, School of Public Health and Family Medicine), and an … Read more…
The header image shows ‘In the same breath’, a 2008 artwork by artist and glass-blower Kate Williams (borosilicate glass / 40 x 125 x 40 cm / courtesy of the artist / Photo © Yiannis Katsaris. See Kate Williams’s website … Read more…
Following on from part 1, Life of Breath PI Havi Carel writes: What is breathlessness? This is a seemingly simple question. Why, it’s the well-known experience of panting, perhaps getting hot and sweaty, maybe a heaving of the chest, or … Read more…
Throughout 2016 our collaborator Jayne Wilton created unique and beautiful breath-inspired artworks to grace the cover of The Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal. She used a variety of techniques including copper etching, photosensitive paper and glass blowing to capture both exhaled … Read more…
Tina Williams, PhD student on the Life of Breath project, writes a post prompted by the inaugural lecture of Prof. Jerry Nolan (audio recording now available), Honorary Professor of Resuscitation Medicine in the School of Clinical Sciences, University of Bristol: Loss. … Read more…
Life of Breath PI Havi Carel writes: The experience of illness is a universal and substantial part of human existence. Like death, illness raises important philosophical issues. But unlike death, illness, and in particular the experience of being ill, has … 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…
This post is the first of a series on vaping and vape tricks by Rebecca Oxley, post-doctoral researcher in anthropology on the Life of Breath project. Rebecca is currently looking for people to share their stories about living with breathlessness. E-cigarettes can make the breath … Read more…
This post is written jointly by Jess Farr-Cox (Life of Breath Project Manager (Bristol) and recently back from a trip to Hangzhou, PR China), and her father David Scoins (lifelong runner, sometime sports teacher and resident in China 2007-2014). The title is … Read more…
In the second of a series of posts on cetaceans (see also ‘The cetaceans may give rise to some perplexity‘), Project Manager (Bristol) Jess Farr-Cox writes: Whaling abounds with breathing, breathlessness, air, death, myth and song. Factory whaling boats were … 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…
Elspeth Penny is an arts, health and communication specialist. She has a letter writing project and a creative consultancy and writes, directs and acts across several platforms. She writes: ‘My Dear Breath, I have lived with you for 83 years, the first … 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, Project Manager (Bristol) writes: The Merry-Go-Round is not as well-known as other works by W. Somerset Maugham, such as Of Human Bondage and his enormous output of short stories. Despite reading Maugham for many years, I had never … Read more…
Elsa Hammond is a PhD candidate at the University of Bristol, working on breath and death in the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Alfred Tennyson and Thomas Hardy. She writes: In accordance with Arthurian legend, Tennyson’s Arthur does not die absolutely … Read more…
Vocal coach, community choir and workshop leader and music therapist Phoene Cave writes: In 2008 I answered an advertisement for a singing teacher at Royal Brompton Hospital in London. The original idea was inspired by Bronchial Boogie in Oldham, to … 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…
Arthur Rose, post-doctoral researcher on the Life of Breath project, writes: The supplementary task in any interdisciplinary work worth its salt is to formulate a ground on which the work might be based. This ground may be some central unifying … Read more…
Rebecca Oxley, post-doctoral research fellow on the Life of Breath project, writes about the recent project launch in Durham (see Making the invisible visible (1): Life of Breath officially launched its programme of work in Durham this week by offering a … Read more…