Healthcare professionals from the R3S Department (Respiration, Resuscitation, Respiratory rehabilitation, Sleep) at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital commissioned an artistic, scientific and medical project designed to raise awareness of respiratory diseases.

Whilst the Covid-19 health crisis rather disrupted our social interactions connected to breathing—transforming speech and breath themselves into particular vectors of contagion—this commission seeks first and foremost to draw the public’s attention to the act of breathing and its vital importance. By transcending disciplinary and societal boundaries, the project aims to offer an original approach to raising awareness of respiratory diseases.

The work RÉESPIRATION created by the artist Samuel Bianchini in response to this commission, is a mimetic device that alters its form as though it were breathing, in rhythm with the respiration of the person standing before it. Abstract, contemplative, and immersive, it belongs to the field of soft robotics. By synchronising with the breathing of its spectator, it seeks to influence their respiratory rhythm and, in turn, their emotional state – a form of respiratory empathy described by the medical community as “interpathy”.