When do I breathe?

When do I breathe? by artist Lauren Brincat is the first exhibition inspired by the 2024 public performance of the same title by the artist, which shaped new paths through the streets of Sydney, connecting communities in collaborative action. In March 2025, as the first exhibition of 2025, The Lock-Up, Muloobinba/Newcastle will present the film, fabric sculptures, and sound installation of the performance—making the presentation a performative structure and whole-of-space experience.

The exhibition and titular film work, When do I breathe? is inspired by the in-between breaths of the choir, whose composition reflects these sounds, sighs, pauses, breaks, rests, and moments of gathering and anticipation before action.

When do I breathe? was the result of a year-long engagement with local Randwick communities by the artist, including local dancers, the NSW Collegium Musicum Choir and NIDA students and alumni, offering an artistic response to the value of care in our society. The performance and resulting film presented at The Lock-Up explores a collective artistic action as a form of resistance, and the work aims to empower the community to come together and reclaim public space. Timed at the intersection between the end of a working day and the beginning of a working night, it brings together local communities that are often separated by different shifts and daily rhythms.

In gallery, audiences will see and hear movement and song animated by a series of fabric sculptures originally used in the performance—what the artist calls graphic scores—including a 100m, handwoven cotton gauze, providing a connective temporal thread between the performers of the film, the audiences of The Lock-Up and the broader community. These graphic scores are revisited for The Lock-Up, featuring elements inspired by forms of nonverbal communication, such as silk tell-tales—to mark the way the wind blows—or knot tying—an ancient form of storing information.

Curator Alexandra Pedley

The exhibition When do I breathe? is proudly funded by the The Lock-Up Patrons Program