Bringing Breathlessness into View

People living with breathlessness find their experience hard to describe to others.

Our research shows that patients with breathlessness feel poorly understood, stigmatised, and less able to participate in life. Hull is an area with high rates of respiratory disease and yet breathlessness management is not routinely offered.

The aim of this project was to make an exhibition to show the public what it is like living with breathlessness.

This multi-media mobile exhibition was co-created by local people living with breathlessness, photographic and sound artists and health researchers. The exhibition has striking images and engaging sound recordings to help people understand what it is like to have breathlessness.

The second part of this project was funded by the University of Hull and involved the creation of a multimedia exhibition on the experience of living with breathlessness, to be exhibited at several sites in Hull and the East Riding. The exhibition has been supported by NHS Hull CCG. For more information please read our blogs for the British Journal of General Practice and the European Association for Palliative Care.

Read our articles in The Conversation, the European Respiratory Journal, the British Journal of General Practice and Heart Matters to find out more about how breathlessness affects people's lives and how clinicians can help their patients to cope better with it.

The first part of this project involved workshops funded by Hull City of Culture 2017 and the Wellcome Trust which brought together local people with chronic breathlessness and a Hull-based photographic artist to create the ideas for a public photographic exhibition showing what it’s like living with breathlessness in Hull; “bringing breathlessness into view”.

Two workshops were held with 29 attendees. Participants were interested in the idea of the exhibition and had much to contribute to its design. Participants also suggested venues for the exhibition and what to include alongside the photographic exhibition.

The second part of this project is funded by the University of Hull and involved the creation of a multimedia exhibition on the experience of living with breathlessness, exhibited at several sites in Hull and also displayed on the websites of Hull York Medical School, NHS CCG and the British Lung Foundation.

Listen to the BBC Radio Humberside interview with Joe Hakim, Ann Hutchinson, Anna Bean and Janice Tonge talking about using art to show what it is like to live with breathlessness.