Drawing Breath(less)

The exhibition 'Drawing Breath(less)' was open to the public from 20 June - 22 June 2024.

About the exhibition:

Moving through the urban environment provides ample reminders of the impacts of air pollution on our body and health. Holding one’s breath for a fleeting moment becomes at times a gesture that encapsulates both the need to protect oneself and the futility of this act. Away from the streets, a pause in breathing can occur in mid sleep, or in wakeful moments as a result of trauma and grief. The word ‘breath’ offers myriad associations, and in it lurks also the inevitable last breath and the silence that follows. Considering these breathless moments offers the opportunity to contemplate the body’s fragility and dependency on clean air and the ability to draw breath.

Drawing from these connotations, and particularly from breath and breathlessness as a form of urban exploration, survival, and even protest, this exhibition brings together experimentations with a range of artistic methods. Through photographic practice and material explorations, these works seek to illuminate the impacts of climate change and the changing environment on the body, as it is considered through a socio-political lens. Exploring two- and three-dimensional methods of representation alongside, and inspired by, scientific processes of mapping and data collecting, the works examines tangible ways to engage with the seemingly invisible impacts of climate change.

Drawing Breath(less) is a practice-led research project by Dana Ariel. This work was created as part of the interdisciplinary and international project on the Impacts of climate change and the environment on physical activity and sleep, a joint project by the University of Engineering and Technology (Viet Nam), Viet Nam National University (VNU) and University of Portsmouth (UK).

The exhibition was hosted by True Ambassadors in collaboration with the University of Portsmouth and the Vietnamese Intellectual Society in the UK and Ireland. This project was supported by the British Council through the UK/Viet Nam Season 2023 programme.