Drawing breath

Abstract

The Lancet Respiratory Medicine is excited to announce that visual artist Jayne Wilton will be creating a series of unique cover images for the journal throughout 2016.Wilton's work focuses on breathing; using a wide and innovative range of materials, she aims to capture the breath, making the invisible visible. Her interest in respiration was piqued in 2004 when she worked alongside patients in the Hospice of St Francis in Hertfordshire, UK, many of whom suffered from breathlessness. Working in the hospice as an art practitioner, she ran workshops that involved recording, with a range of media, the patients' breath moving the flame of a candle. “I was astounded and moved by the generosity of patients to donate their precious and finite breath”, she says. “I felt a real responsibility to create something suitably celebratory of each patient's breath—a poignant record of a moment in time.”But her experience of respiratory medicine goes further back than that, to her role in brand management for a pharmaceutical company where she worked on asthma management products. The commitment of respiratory physicians, family doctors, asthma nurses, and respiratory health organisations to improve the lives of asthma patients inspired her, years later, to investigate breathing and breathlessness in her art.Wilton currently collaborates on the Life of Breath project, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust and led by Durham University, UK, and Bristol University, UK. This medical humanities project aims to examine breath, breathing and breathlessness from philosophical, historical, cultural, and anthropological perspectives and to combine these with clinical understanding, with the aim of improving awareness and management of breathing problems. Jayne's work aims to provide a common visual language through which the multidisciplinary team can connect.The breath is a never-ending source of fascination for Wilton, for a range of reasons. “Perhaps it's the elusiveness and mercurial qualities of the breath that intrigue me—breath lies literally at the centre of existence allowing communication, movement, and thought”, she says. “Perhaps it's the invisibility of this animating force which makes it so enigmatic, but also I think it's the ability of the breath to communicate experiences, whether through voice or universal breathing signals such as the sigh, that makes me long to pin down and record these exquisite gestures, moments in time demonstrating coexisting resilience and fragility.” The Lancet Respiratory Medicine is excited to announce that visual artist Jayne Wilton will be creating a series of unique cover images for the journal throughout 2016. Wilton's work focuses on breathing; using a wide and innovative range of materials, she aims to capture the breath, making the invisible visible. Her interest in respiration was piqued in 2004 when she worked alongside patients in the Hospice of St Francis in Hertfordshire, UK, many of whom suffered from breathlessness. Working in the hospice as an art practitioner, she ran workshops that involved recording, with a range of media, the patients' breath moving the flame of a candle. “I was astounded and moved by the generosity of patients to donate their precious and finite breath”, she says. “I felt a real responsibility to create something suitably celebratory of each patient's breath—a poignant record of a moment in time.” But her experience of respiratory medicine goes further back than that, to her role in brand management for a pharmaceutical company where she worked on asthma management products. The commitment of respiratory physicians, family doctors, asthma nurses, and respiratory health organisations to improve the lives of asthma patients inspired her, years later, to investigate breathing and breathlessness in her art. Wilton currently collaborates on the Life of Breath project, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust and led by Durham University, UK, and Bristol University, UK. This medical humanities project aims to examine breath, breathing and breathlessness from philosophical, historical, cultural, and anthropological perspectives and to combine these with clinical understanding, with the aim of improving awareness and management of breathing problems. Jayne's work aims to provide a common visual language through which the multidisciplinary team can connect. The breath is a never-ending source of fascination for Wilton, for a range of reasons. “Perhaps it's the elusiveness and mercurial qualities of the breath that intrigue me—breath lies literally at the centre of existence allowing communication, movement, and thought”, she says. “Perhaps it's the invisibility of this animating force which makes it so enigmatic, but also I think it's the ability of the breath to communicate experiences, whether through voice or universal breathing signals such as the sigh, that makes me long to pin down and record these exquisite gestures, moments in time demonstrating coexisting resilience and fragility.”