Through my role as project manager for the Life of Breath medical humanities research project I led the development of Catch Your Breath. Catch Your Breath was the first ever interpretive exhibition about breath.
The exhibition explored how our relationship with and understanding of the breath has developed over time, from ancient philosophers who equated breath with life itself to the latest advances in medicine. Catch Your Breath combined objects, visual, sound, interactive materials and events and launched at Palace Green Library, Durham (24 November 2018 – 17 March 2019) before moving on to the Royal College of Physicians in London (2 April – 21 September 2019) the Southmead Hospital Bristol (24 September 2019 – 1 January 2020) and Bristol Central Library (10 January – 27 February 2020). Catch Your Breath also toured as a pop-up exhibition in the Autumn of 2019 and in 2020 was redeveloped as an online exhibition. Catch Your Breath has reached over 10,000 people across all these iterations.
My role was to mastermind the exhibition development and delivery, working with expert curators, exhibition designers and creative practitioners. With support from a project officer, I also coordinated the events and engagement programme that accompanied the exhibition. A key part of my role was acting as liaison between the curators and designers, and the researchers and other stakeholders to ensure the research was presented correctly and the right story was told. I also conducted the exhibition evaluation and developed the exhibition website (now archived).
