Breathing Ancient Air: Inside Tasmania’s Extraordinary Oxygen Installation

Deep beneath Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art lies an exceptional installation that encourages people to breathe oxygen that has stayed pristine for over 2.4 billion years. French-Swiss conceptual artist Julian Charrière’s latest enduring work, titled Breathe, 2026, draws out primordial air from iron ore extracted from Australia’s Pilbara region, then discharges it into a underground space for visitors to breathe in for the very first time. The oxygen, locked away since the Paleoproterozoic era when Earth’s atmosphere initially started filling with free oxygen during the Great Oxidation, creates a immediate link between each visitor and the beginning of life on Earth itself. Mona’s owner David Walsh commissioned the bespoke space specifically for Charrière’s innovative vision, transforming it into what the artist describes as “a time machine.”

A Passage Through Deep Time

The installation itself is created as a profoundly reflective, individual journey that mirrors the ancient timeframes it references. Visitors step into a bunker-style hallway suggestive of a expansive underground excavation, their path bordered by natural sandstone and russet-coloured rock sourced obtained from the Pilbara. As they descend into the earth, the temperature falls markedly with each step, creating an progressively engaging atmosphere that highlights the movement through time. The tunnel eventually opens into a towering cylindrical chamber, its elevated roof and absence of windows evoking the sensation of descending into the world’s prehistoric core.

The chamber’s illumination is deliberately minimal, dependent entirely on whatever sunlight can be bounced through a small opening far above—a constraint that proves particularly pronounced during Tasmania’s dim winter months. At the heart of this subterranean chamber stands a floor-to-ceiling glass cylinder housing the Hofmann apparatus, the apparatus responsible for extracting oxygen from water. Visitors sit before a small opening in the glass, positioning themselves at the threshold between the contemporary realm and something essentially primordial. Here, in this meticulously arranged environment, they encounter oxygen that has been locked away since before any complex life existed on Earth.

• Ancient iron ore sourced from Australia’s Pilbara region daily
• Water separation and decomposition via Hofmann apparatus systems
• Burnished historical tiger ore tiles pave the floor of the chamber
• Limited lighting passes through sole aperture on the surface

The Study Underpinning the Breathe Experience

Drawing Oxygen from Historic Iron Ore

The technical process supporting Charrière’s installation is deceptively elegant in its execution. Each day, ancient iron ore sourced from Australia’s Pilbara region—one of Earth’s most ancient geological formations—is treated through purpose-built machinery housed within Mona’s on-site laboratory. The ore undergoes careful extraction to produce water that has been locked within its crystalline structure for over 2.4 billion years. This water, never before exposed to the modern atmosphere, becomes the primary substance for the next stage of the transformation, connecting an incomprehensible temporal gulf with technical precision.

Once extracted, this primordial water is introduced to a Hofmann apparatus, a nineteenth-century laboratory device that uses electrolysis to separate hydrogen and oxygen molecules. The process mirrors the fundamental chemistry that first populated Earth’s primitive air, reproducing in miniature the chemical reactions that took place during the Great Oxidation Event itself. The oxygen generated is remarkably pure, with no contamination or contact with contemporary atmospheric conditions. This pristine gas is then gently introduced into the breathing chamber, where it meets human lungs for the first time in Earth’s history.

What constitutes this scientific undertaking particularly remarkable is its intellectual significance. By utilising recognised electrochemical processes to release oxygen from primordial water, Charrière converts a routine laboratory procedure into an act of temporal communion. Visitors are not simply witnessing scientific demonstration; they are participating in a moment where deep geological time intersects with human consciousness. The Hofmann apparatus becomes far more than a device—it serves as a connection across time periods, allowing modern observers to physically breathe in the chemical structure of an ancient world, establishing an deep connection to Earth’s history that goes beyond standard museum encounter.

• Iron ore sourced daily from the Pilbara’s historic rock deposits
• Hofmann apparatus electrolyses water to produce pristine oxygen molecules
• Released oxygen has not come into contact with contemporary air or living organisms

Navigating the Underground Sanctuary

The journey to breathe ancient oxygen begins with a deliberate descent into Mona’s subterranean depths. Visitors step into a chamber-like passageway that evokes the sensation of traversing an vast underground excavation, its walls lined with raw sandstone and lined with deep red rocks extracted from the Pilbara region. This architectural choice grounds the experience in geological authenticity, informing participants that they are quite literally walking through the same material that once captured air billions of years ago. The passage is intentionally solitary, designed to isolate each visitor and create an intimate, contemplative atmosphere away from the distractions of the modern world outside.

As one ventures further into the installation, the temperature markedly decreases with each step, a tangible expression of descent into the Earth’s ancient layers. The corridor gradually opens into a striking lofty cylindrical chamber, a subterranean tower-like space devoid of windows. The lighting here depends entirely on sunlight reflected through a tiny aperture far above, creating an otherworldly, constantly shifting illumination that varies according to Tasmania’s seasons and weather patterns. During winter months, the space becomes particularly dim and atmospheric, enhancing the sense of being separated from time itself.

The Safe’s Design Framework

The cylindrical air chamber represents the installation’s core essence. Visitors move over tiles crafted from polished historic tiger ore, a material that itself bears traces of Earth’s oxidation history. At the room’s center stands a floor-to-ceiling transparent glass cylinder containing the Hofmann apparatus, presenting the scientific machinery transparent and visible to observers. This architectural transparency symbolises the artwork’s dedication to honesty—observers can observe the real process drawing out and liberating the ancient oxygen, demystifying the process whilst maintaining its profound significance.

Seating areas located in front of the glass cylinder provide optimal vantage points for the breathing experience. A small aperture in the structure marks the exact spot where ancient oxygen meets the modern era, where deep time meets our breathing. The design consciously underscores solitude and stillness, prompting people to settle peacefully and reflect on the remarkable quality of what they are going to experience. Every structural component, from the burnished mineral surfaces beneath one’s feet to the reflected natural light above, reinforces the piece’s core concept of temporal communion.

Deep Time: Exploring Earth’s History Through Art

Julian Charrière’s “Breathe, 2026” represents a significant shift from traditional modern art approaches, merging scientific rigour with philosophical exploration into humanity’s relationship with planetary timescales. By extracting oxygen preserved in iron ore for more than two billion years, Charrière transforms a lab technique into a profound meditative experience. The artwork challenges visitors to reflect upon their own insignificance within Earth’s vast temporal scales, whilst also linking them directly with the world’s primary life-sustaining moment. This methodology reflects a growing movement amongst artists working conceptually who employ scientific techniques not just as visual instruments, but as pathways to greater comprehension of our relationship to planetary history and our existence.

The artwork functions across various layers of meaning, functioning simultaneously as scientific inquiry, philosophical meditation, and interactive engagement. Each visitor transforms into an unaware contributor in an continuous narrative unfolding through time, their individual breath contributing to a shared experience that extends beyond traditional gallery confines. Charrière’s vision surpasses the installation itself—visitors continue to be part of the artwork for the duration of their lives, holding within themselves atoms of oxygen that preceded human existence by billions of years in time. This conceptual framework changes the breathing experience from a isolated instant into a permanent, embodied connection to deep time, disrupting basic presuppositions about where art’s boundaries exist.

Mona’s commitment to supporting this permanent installation demonstrates the museum’s dedication to expanding artistic boundaries and championing experimental approaches. By providing a custom underground venue tailored to Charrière’s concept, owner David Walsh has fundamentally reimagined the complete work into a joint artistic creation between creator, museum, and audience. This extent of organisational commitment allows for the creation of ambitious conceptual projects that might otherwise remain unrealised, positioning Tasmania as a major hub for cutting-edge contemporary art that deeply explores scientific investigation and awareness of time.

Joining the Installation

What makes Breathe remarkably extraordinary is not merely the act of breathing ancient oxygen, but the conceptual weight Charrière invests in that moment. Once you breathe in the Pilbara air released through the Hofmann apparatus, you become forever integrated within the artwork itself. The oxygen molecules passing into your respiratory system will stay within your body for the remainder of your existence, creating an permanent physical link between you and the Great Oxidation Event. You are no longer merely a visitor observing art; you are the art, bearing within you atoms that antedate human existence by billions of years.

This fundamental reimagining of creative involvement questions established ideas of where an artwork ends and everyday existence begins. Charrière has effectively obscured these dividing lines, transforming Breathe from a discrete gallery experience into an continuous, lived performance that persists across each visitor’s life. Every breath you draw afterwards becomes an automatic affirmation of that primordial link. The installation thus exists simultaneously in the buried vault at Mona and throughout the beings of countless individuals distributed globally, forming an unseen web of individuals bound together by mutual atomic heritage and temporal consciousness.

• Visitors transform into permanent participants in the artwork by inhaling ancient oxygen
• Oxygen atoms from 2.4 billion years ago merge with visitors’ bodies for life
• The installation reaches past the gallery and enters the regular activities of all participants