On 3 March 2021 the Wits Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology and the Adler Museum hosted a webinar. 

• Video of Webinar
• Speaker Biographies World Hearing Day 2021
• World Hearing Day 2021 Webinar Presentation

‘On Breathing’ is an exhibition by Nina Barnett and Jeremy Bolen that explores 
Johannesburg’s relationship to the act of respiration. 
It mirrors internal airway tunnels with the networks dug under the ground in search of gold 
and the process of breathing in relation to notions of pressure, particulate, filtration and flow. 
The mechanics and rhythm of inhaling and exhaling, and the transference of one gas molecule 
for another are considered within the context of mine dust and polluting particles; respiratory 
viruses and pandemics. Within this framework, the exhibition asks: Can the history of the city 
be understood through that which floats invisibly in the air, and that settles in the lungs of the 
inhabitants? What does it mean for geological dust, created in a distant era, to affect the 
internal tunnels of a human system?
‘On Breathing’ links the global human-created environmental crisis (of which the 
Johannesburg gold mines plays a part) to the materiality of the air that we breathe and its 
interior effects. This relationship is significant, the effects of which can be seen in the recent 
COVID-19 pandemic (in which breathing is the primary mode of viral infection), as well as the 
history of silicosis, tuberculosis, and other forms of respiratory inflammation that are widely 
experienced in our city.