{"id":462148,"date":"2026-06-05T09:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462148\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T09:21:08","slug":"i-just-inhaled-2-4bn-year-old-oxygen-in-tasmania-now-im-part-of-an-exhibition-until-i-die-mona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/462148\/","title":{"rendered":"I just inhaled 2.4bn year old oxygen in Tasmania. Now I\u2019m part of an exhibition until I die | Mona"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 2bn years ago, during the Paleoproterozoic era, the Earth\u2019s atmosphere began to fill with free oxygen, enabling the rise of aerobic life and, ultimately, humans. It\u2019s known as the Great Oxidation Event, and deep in the subterranean belly of the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania<\/a>, a new artwork offers visitors the chance to inhale oxygen that\u2019s been trapped in iron ore since then.<\/p>\n

When French-Swiss conceptual artist Julian Charri\u00e8re came up with the idea, Mona\u2019s owner David Walsh not only said yes but created a bespoke space for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to get all the way back to the beginning of the earth,\u201d Charri\u00e8re tells the Guardian at the media call on Friday. \u201cIt\u2019s like a time machine.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has sourced ancient iron ore from Australia\u2019s Pilbara region, which is put through machinery in an on-site lab each day to have water extracted. The water is then put through a Hofmann apparatus \u2013 a piece of scientific equipment that electrolyses water \u2013 to pull oxygen out. That oxygen is then released into the room to be breathed in by visitors for the very first time, connecting each person \u201cto the beginning of life on earth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Artist Julian Charri\u00e8re at Mona\u2019s Breathe lab. Photograph: Mona\/Jesse Hunniford. Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona.<\/p>\n

Breathe is designed as a solitary experience.<\/p>\n

One by one, visitors are given access to a vault-like corridor reminiscent of a huge mining drift. Walking through the tunnel, flanked by raw sandstone and lined with deep red rocks from the Pilbara, you can pause to peek into a side room with the aforementioned lab.<\/p>\n

The temperature drops with each step as the tunnel opens into a high-ceilinged cylindrical room, like an underground windowless tower, with the lighting dependent on the amount of sun that can be reflected through a small opening above (so, in Tasmanian winter, pretty dim).<\/p>\n

Walking over tiles made of polished ancient tiger ore, you\u2019ll circle another cylinder: a floor-to-ceiling clear glass tube that houses the Hofmann apparatus.<\/p>\n

Sit in front, and you\u2019ll see a small opening. Here is your closest access to Charri\u00e8re\u2019s pure, ancient oxygen.<\/p>\n

Breathe runs alongside Charri\u00e8re\u2019s major new exhibition, Hard Core. Artwork pictured: Not all Who Wander Are Lost (detail), 2019. Photograph: Mona\/Jesse Hunniford. Courtesy the artist and Mona<\/p>\n

In inhaling, \u201cyou are connected to the beginning of life on Earth but you are also \u2013 and that is the crazy thing about this space \u2013 you are also the first person to inhale that oxygen,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are breathing something which is so pure and has not been touched by any being before you \u2026 And the beauty of the piece is you will carry it until you die.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to become a small part of this installation and you become a big part of the great oxygen cycle, and you will only finally free this oxygen once \u2026.\u201d He pauses: \u201cOnce you\u2019re going in the other world.\u201d He means: once you die.<\/p>\n

Breathe, a permanent installation, is opening alongside Charriere\u2019s major new exhibition Hard Core, which showcases both the ambition and the scientific curiosity of the Berlin-based artist.<\/p>\n

Individual elements of Hard Core have been exhibited elsewhere in the world, including at the Venice Biennale, but it\u2019s difficult to imagine the full show sitting anywhere other than underground at Mona, with its exposed rock, its mix of the industrial with the elemental, and its fusion of science with art. \u201cWe decided to really focus on works that relate to geology in some way,\u201d the artist says.<\/p>\n

The Blue Fossil Entropic Stories III & II, 2013, by Julian Charri\u00e8re, a series of photos of the artist standing on icebergs. Photograph: Mona\/Jesse Hunniford. Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona<\/p>\n

In Blue Fossil Entropic Stories (2013), a series of photos depicts Charri\u00e8re standing on and dwarfed by an Icelandic iceberg, making his mark with a blowtorch.<\/p>\n

In Not all Who Wander Are Lost, glacial rocks take up parts of the room. They have been drilled into, with the removed columns lined up along the floor. In Nobodies Dreams Survives, living snails slowly eat away at a calcium carbonate sculpture. In Atlas, a beautiful large rotating marble is mechanically polished, and will slowly erode over the timeline of the exhibition. Controlled Burn is a hypnotic film of imploding fireworks, shot at sites in Germany, Belgium and the North Sea.<\/p>\n

The show then takes you through a mirrored room of more rock, reflection and strobe-like light, before you cocoon yourself within a dark carpeted space where you can lie down and absorb the livestreamed rumblings of an active volcano.<\/p>\n

Hypnotic film Controlled Burn, 2022, shows imploding fireworks. Photograph: Mona\/Jesse Hunniford. Copyright the artist; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany. Courtesy the artist and Mona<\/p>\n

Parts of Hard Core evoke previous Mona shows: Theo Merciere\u2019s Mirrorscape<\/a>, or perhaps more obviously Jonsi\u2019s Hrafntinna (Obsidian)<\/a> \u2013 although Charri\u00e8re\u2019s volcano immersion is more meditative. As a whole, it takes you on an epic trip through deep time and deep Earth, examining our relationship to the planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach sculpture, each installation, each work is trying to bring deep time into the realm of human experience. That\u2019s basically the \u2018hard core\u2019 of this show,\u201d Charri\u00e8re says. \u201cYou can actually sense what is normally [beyond] what our senses are able to grasp.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 2bn years ago, during the Paleoproterozoic era, the Earth\u2019s atmosphere began to fill with free oxygen,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-462148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}