(This is) Air

“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’“ - David Foster Wallace, This is Water This commission seeks to make air present. This matter that we spend our lives swimming in and through. Air and breathing are our common act. Both equalising and non-discriminatory, it is the defining feature of life on Earth. We have created a pavilion that breathes, its total volume approximating the consumption of one human across one year. It is alive, dynamic and multi-faceted. It reminds us of how we are all interdependent and connected. It represents a hopeful future. Throughout the day air is inhaled and then released in a natural cadence, during this process the commission morphs and evolves. As it deflates, the irregular form alters in unpredictable and intriguing ways, composing an endless array of new cloud-like configurations. A playful study of air and time, it takes shape as a giant sphere that is large, proud and full of optimism. Its counterpoint, deflation, is sullen, flat, enervated. Deflation is not the conclusion, however. As it re-inflates, a whole new narrative begins. This project is a catalyst to examine our own misconceptions around control, and that change, adaption, and imperfection are often more beautiful and interesting. The NGV Triennial themes of Magic, Matter, and Memory are to be read out of the proposal. Magic is in the celebration of that which is not seen, whether it be material or immaterial. Encouraging us to pay closer attention to our lives and the moments that comprise them. The extraordinariness of the commonplace, this is where magic is found. This commission will utilise a material, a matter, that is in abundance and always readily available. Everywhere but invisible, the work acts as an invitation to reconsider our relationship to air, making it both visible and felt. It engages in memory, both past and future, collective and individual. Air, and the transferral of matter on it has been the defining theme of these last 3 years. The project has been designed as a closed loop circulatory system. In material, it is nothing but two thin skins held aloft and all materials are selected so as to be fully recyclable upon decommissioning. Importantly, the project is wholly universal and inclusive, experienced regardless of the visitors’ size, age, or physical needs. Seasonally, the pavilion will show many countenances, a blank sphere to reflect back the moods of sun, wind, storm, and rain. As an object, it talks of the universal and is reflexive, only communicating back what is real and presently occurring. The democracy of air and its presence seen and felt via this proposal, invites a collective discourse around the oneness and fragility of the human condition.