Inside This Year’s NGV Architecture Commission by Nic Brunsdon

Upon first glance, architect Nic Brunsdon’s material expression of air – realised in collaboration with St Kilda-based technical art consulting studio ENESS – draws intrigue and fascination.

During our conversation, ahead of the official unveiling of (This Is) Air, numerous NGV patrons try to bypass the barriers to get closer to this blown-up sphere. As we observe it in the wind, interpretations from a giant orb of burrata to Baymax in the Disney film Big Hero 6 to a Covid spore are bandied about by Nic’s initial reaction to the launch, which is that “it’s pretty surreal, pretty off-putting”.

As we observe it in the wind, interpretations from a giant orb of burrata to Baymax in the Disney film Big Hero 6 to a Covid spore are bandied about by Nic’s initial reaction to the launch, which is that “it’s pretty surreal, pretty off-putting”.

“It’s an invitation, it’s an offering,” the Melbourne-born, Perth-based architect explains of his exploration of architectural thinking translated as an artful think piece. “It’s deliberately mute and non-referential, it’s the simplest form you can choose – a sphere and it’s white – and in that way, it’s supposed to offer not so much when you arrive and see it. It takes a while for you to understand what it’s about – is it friend or foe? What does it want from me? That liminal space is interesting because it’s almost forcing you to check your own response and reaction rather than it telling you what to do or think.”

The previous evening, where The Local Project had held its inaugural Emerging Designer Awards event in the neighbouring NGV Garden Restaurant, (This Is) Air was sheathed from prying eyes under a sheet. Now that it has been revealed, there is still an air of mystery. The size is an approximation of “the amount of air that one human consumes in a year,” says Nic. There is also an inner sphere within – the control centre of technological machinations, ballast and steel – that allows the outer sphere to inflate and deflate through a 15-minute cycle, where the billowing parachute-like bubble punctured by air vents interacts with the outer elements as well as patrons wandering beneath it, perhaps choosing to touch or even embrace it. “It exhales and you can feel it through the vents so you can feel the air move,” says Nic.

It certainly makes a stop-in-your-tracks impact, and for a piece that symbolises something as intangible as air, (This Is) Air is a thought-provoking exercise. While Nic and his team had “these ideas on air, universality and interconnectedness and making the invisible visible”, he’s well aware that this is just the starting point. “What people take from that point on is up to them, and every response is right. There’s no wrong way to read this,” he says.

One of the great references Nic and his team wanted to draw upon in their creation of (This Is) Air was a speech by writer and essayist David Foster Wallace: “There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’”

It certainly makes a stop-in-your-tracks impact, and for a piece that symbolises something as intangible as air, (This Is) Air is a thought-provoking exercise.

It is a concise acknowledgement that “you don’t question it and you don’t question reality,” says Nic. “We are born, breathing, and air is the defining feature of life on earth, from a baby’s first breath to your last breath,” he says. “This thing that we’re surrounded by that we don’t question, that we don’t think about, it’s a subconscious system until you say, ‘How’s your breathing?’”

Inevitably, this leads to discussion of the pandemic and how a universal sense of community, togetherness and interdependency was garnered against something that gives life to every being on this planet. “Without an event like Covid, we wouldn’t have realised air as an agent that can really connect us in harmful ways,” says Nic. “It opens up questions of the quality of air we breathe and how that’s not equal.”

“We are born, breathing, and air is the defining feature of life on earth, from a baby’s first breath to your last breath,” says Nic.

This year’s Architecture Commission coincides with the NGV Triennial, which explores three key themes: Magic, Matter and Memory. Matter was the principal theme addressed by (This is) Air, but the work also manages to address all three. “Magic, in making the invisible visible, [is] the unexpected and unreal, giving air form and volume,” says Nic. “Matter, being air, is the agent. It’s always here, but the wind means it moves. And memory, with everyone’s connections to the idea of air and breathing.”

As for bringing a research-based architectural approach to a work of art, Nic and his team “were trying to find something universal but highly specific,” he says. “Something about the specifics of being human – how do you unify all of us together without looking at differences. Air is the thing we spend all of our lives in and we share the air we breathe; it’s here and it’s for everyone.” This foray into the art world has been an interesting journey for Nic and his practice. “It’s almost detached from strategy or outcome; it was just a response to a question,” he says. “But it also chases what we always try to do, which is simplicity with depth. How do we say the most with the least – we always try to chase that.”

This year’s Architecture Commission coincides with the NGV Triennial, which explores three key themes: Magic, Matter and Memory.