BREATHE WITH ME | Basel Editon: Soft Clubbing
Singer Klub at Marktplatz, Basel | June 17 - 22, 2025
DISCOVERING STILLNESS THROUGH THE SENSES
BREATHE WITH ME — Basel Edition: Soft Clubbing
Art Basel Week · 17–22 June, 2025 · Basel, Switzerland
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BREATHE WITH ME is an immersive, multisensory installation for wellbeing and community. Designed and conceptualized by the Swiss-born, New York-based experience designer Annabelle Schneider.
Originally commissioned by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York, the installation has already been shown internationally – including in New York, Barcelona, Tashkent, and Gainesville – and now returns in an evolved form to its place of original inspiration: Switzerland.
In May 2025, BREATHE WITH ME was named a Finalist and Honoree of the NYCxDESIGN Awards, recognized as one of the year’s most outstanding installations and exhibitions.
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A BREATHING COCOON FOR PRESENCE
The installation invited visitors into a soft, cocoon-like space that offered stillness, reflection, and reconnection. Guided by an original soundscape composed by Luc Oggier and activated through intimate live performances by Braths and OSOMO, the experience unfolded through breath, light, scent, and an amorphous, inflatable textile sculpture that rised and fell rhythmically – an homage to the calming breath that unites us all. Entering the cocoon offered a shift in perspective: Away from an overstimulated, visually driven, and increasingly AI-smoothed world, into a space of deceleration and grounding.
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“In a time when we are flooded by sensations and accelerated by artificial systems yet rarely touched on an emotional level, we need places that allow us to process again,” says artist and designer Annabelle Schneider. “Multisensory elements – sound, scent, movement – gently guide us into a quieter state. The Bubble is not a spectacle, but a temporary home for what finds no space in everyday life: stillness, sensation, and conscious presence.”
Annabelle Schneider, Experience Designer
The breathing spatial sculpture was developed in collaboration with the Swiss studio Luft & Laune, which played a key role in shaping both the form and technical realization, and significantly contributed to the architectural language of the project.
At the entrance of Singer Klub stood the Breathing Drop – a scent-based sculpture developed by Annabelle in collaboration with the Swiss fragrance house Luzi. Inspired by the architecture of the breathing space, it translated the theme of breath into an olfactory experience.
The fragrance FOVET, specially composed by Luzi, made breath tangible on a deeper emotional level. Here, scent became an additional layer of breath – invisible, yet emotionally resonant – guiding visitors through the space with subtle accents.
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SOFT CLUBBING – RETHINKING SPACES OF GATHERING
Set in an unexpected venue – a club – the Basel edition reimagined how we gather. Through the lens of well-being, sensual presence, and emotional resonance, Soft Clubbing replaced strobes and bass with rhythm and atmosphere. Here, architecture breathes and connected, offering a radical rethinking of the club not as a site of excess, but as a space for inner tuning and intentional togetherness.
We are witnessing the beginning of a soft cultural shift – one that moves consciously away from sensory overload and toward deeper, more present modes of being together. As traditional nightlife fades and the desire for meaningful, multisensory experiences grows, BREATHE WITH ME offered a “third space” – somewhere between ritual, retreat, and reconnection.
In an age of urgency, disconnection, and visual saturation, BREATHE WITH ME made space not for doing, but for being – invited us to rethink the ephemeral nature of design as a tool for intimacy, sensory awareness, and collective calm.
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“BREATHE WITH ME is a response to a world that feels increasingly fast, loud,
and disembodied. In the midst of this sensory overload, I believe design
must slow us down — not through silence, but through depth.
Multi-sensory spaces engage more than just the eye — they awaken memory, sensation, and presence. This project is a quiet manifesto for spatial experience and for designing with and for the whole body — where touch, sound, scent, and breath become tools for inclusion, connection, and well-being.”
and disembodied. In the midst of this sensory overload, I believe design
must slow us down — not through silence, but through depth.
Multi-sensory spaces engage more than just the eye — they awaken memory, sensation, and presence. This project is a quiet manifesto for spatial experience and for designing with and for the whole body — where touch, sound, scent, and breath become tools for inclusion, connection, and well-being.”
Annabelle Schneider, Experience Designer
