Serenity Sensorium
An art-healing sensing system for people with anxiety disorders. Breathing meditation is translated into the rise and fall of physical modules — guiding visitors towards a slower, embodied pulse through plant, physical, and virtual layers.
The work draws from clinical breath-meditation research, but reframes therapy as encounter rather than instruction. The modules don't tell you to slow down — they slow down with you. A breath sensor near the visitor's mouth reads their respiratory rhythm, and seven white blocks rise and fall in response, offering a visible mirror of breath itself.
Adjacent to the modules sits a small living plant, also responding — its leaves trembling with a tiny servo when the visitor exhales. The interaction is gentle and accumulating: the longer the visitor stays, the more the plant and modules sync into the visitor's pace, until breathing slows naturally.
The piece was developed during a year of clinical research at Wuhan, in conversation with psychologists working with WHO data on the global rise of anxiety post-pandemic.