Interview with Mel O’Callagan

“Respire Respire” is a breath work performance, it’s a protocol of breath. The work itself and the performance are choreographed by breath repertoire. There are performers moving and they take their place within the glass pieces which almost become an extension of them. When you’re in the room, you can’t exactly feel the depth or the space between you and the glass. You lose a sense of orientation.” - Mel O’Callagan

An almost transparent installation, capturing and reflecting all the variations in colors and light emanating from the lake, ‘Respire, Respire’ proposes instruments of communication with our own body, which dialogue with the surrounding landscape at the same time.

‘Respire, Respire’ thinks about the foundation of all life and exposes breath, both as an elementary impulse and as a source of connection to the abundant depths. In collaboration with Sabine Rittner (associate researcher and music therapist at the Institute of Medical Psychology at the University Hospital of Heidelberg in Germany), the artist has imagined a performance based on inhalation and exhalation techniques, aiming to provoke joy or serenity, but also and above all to provoke altered states of consciousness and moments of meditation, ecstasy, or hallucination.