(Research) '(This is) Air' x Mess Books
(2023)
NGV Architecture Commission
"Our (in)capacity to breathe depends on myriad factors – our bodily constitution, our respiratory and psychological conditioning, and perhaps the factor that umbrellas all: our relationship to structural power dynamics. Breathing is impacted by various social and political dimensions. As we have witnessed, these can be both caring and also violent, articulating the fragile asymmetries between degrees of vulnerability from person to person. As our world becomes increasingly toxic – in both matter and metaphor – what frameworks can we use to reimagine what it means to breathe?"
– Jessica Kwok, I Have Your Air
Offering timely consideration of urgent ecological, civic and political questions about the act of breathing and experiences of air, (This is) Air is an expanded archive of Nic Brunsdon's 2023 NGV Architecture Commission of the same name. The book features a foreword by David Neustein (Other Architects, The Monthly), an introduction by Jessica Kwok (Storefront for Art and Architecture, NYC), new writing from Mark Jacques (Openwork, RMIT) and photography by Ben Hosking.
These contributions sit alongside conversations and addresses with insights from Nic Brunsdon, Dr Timothy Moore and Ewan McEoin of the NGV, and members of the technical team, as well as project materials and documentation, reflecting on the work as both process and product, architecture and art, experiment and triumph.
