Gloriously tranquil
Breathing is the physiological act that is most natural, and most integral to human survival. So how can freedivers voluntarily control this crucial function to dive underwater without any breathing apparatus?
Immerse yourself in an alien, underwater world and examine the limits of our bodies, our breath and our environment.
“The sea is in my bones,” says the artist Martina Amati. “I filmed myself and other freedivers performing underwater. I always want to drag the audience underwater with me.”
"During the free fall you need to let go of everything that you know and everything that makes you feel good or bad."
“Freedivers talk about this quite holistic experience of being at one with the ocean and this great feeling of wellbeing,” says scientist and collaborator Kevin Fong. “And to a physiologist, that is the euphoria of oxygen starvation and hypoxia.”
"It isn't very far as you descend into the ocean before it becomes an extreme challenge for your body," he continues. "This pressure starts to manipulate your body, your anatomy and your physiology in quite profound ways."
“I would love science to help freedivers achieve even more,” says Amati, “and for freedivers to help scientists research and understand more about breath-holding and the human body at its extreme.”
Martina Amati is a film-maker and artist based in London. Many of her films study the human body crystallised in movement, and the limits of its strength and fragility. She grew up close to the sea in Italy, and water is a recurring theme in her work. In 2010 she was awarded a BAFTA for her short film about holding your breath underwater, ‘I Do Air’. She received a Wellcome Arts Award in 2012 to create ‘Under’.
Kevin Fong is a Consultant Anaesthetist at UCL Hospitals in London. He is co-director of the Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme environment medicine and an honorary senior lecturer in physiology at University College London.
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