Installation designs encouraging meditative practice amidst the pandemic

Undergraduate Project, 2020-21

Spatial Design | Illustration | Installation Design | Animation | Contextual Imagery | Computer Aided Design | 3D Prototyping

Summary

Breathing Space is an interactive installation series located on the Dundee University Campus designed to encourage students to practice mindful behaviour in its presence. In response to the rise of new mental health issues experienced amongst young people during lockdown, the four sites in Breathing Space aim to push mental health into conversation and facilitate the space to share and console in a socially distanced environment.

Social Context

During the pandemic, many people became hyper-aware of the air they were breathing as the result of their fear of catching COVID. This heightened sense of spatial awareness aggravated social anxieties and germaphobia in many people. The installations of Breathing Space encourage the occupants to be more attentive and mindful of the spaces they occupy in a more grounded and meditative fashion.

Inspiration

There is much scientific research and numerous experiential accounts to show that meditation can positively impact our lives and even change them for good. The ancient practice can help us to be more resilient during challenging times, as well as more empathetic and caring of one another. Inspired by the concept of ‘The Gap’, the space between thoughts one can experience during moments of meditation, the installation series utilises the gaps between buildings to create pockets of refuge for students and places to be still, encouraging the cultivation of daily practice and conciousness.

The four sites take inspiration from the four stages of wound healing in terms of their location, topography and characteristics, as a means of bringing awareness to the autonomous biological systems hard at work in our bodies that keep us healthy without us barely noticing it at times. The organic structures of the installations were particularly influenced by the forms of red blood cells. Whilst blood is inherently off-putting and triggering to many, microscopic images of red blood cells are bizarly comical and have been utilised with playful effect in each of the four designs.