I just released 2.4bn years of gas in Tasmania. Now I’m part of the show until I die | Here

MMore than 2 billion years ago, in the Paleoproterozoic era, the Earth’s atmosphere began to fill with free oxygen, which made aerobic life possible and, ultimately, humans. It is known as the Great Oxidation Event, and inside the subterranean belly of the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) to. Tasmaniathe new artwork gives visitors the chance to breathe in the air that has been trapped in the steel frame ever since.

When French-Swiss artist Julian Charrière came up with the idea, Mona’s owner David Walsh not only said yes but created a space for it.

“I want people to go back to the beginning of the world,” Charrière told the Guardian on Friday. “It’s like a time machine.”

He found an old metal in the Pilbara region of Australia, which he puts in a machine every day to extract water. The water is put through a Hofmann apparatus – a scientific instrument that manipulates water – to remove oxygen. That air is released into the room for visitors to breathe for the first time, connecting each person “to the beginning of life on earth”.

Breathing is done as an automatic process.

One by one, visitors are given access to a gallery-like corridor reminiscent of the great mines. Walking down the road, surrounded by raw sand and covered in deep red rock from the Pilbara, you can pause to peek into the side room that houses the aforementioned lab.

The temperature drops with each step when the tunnel is opened in the upper cylindrical room, like a windowless underground tower, and the lighting depends on the amount of sunlight that can be shown through a small hole at the top (so, in the winter of Tasmania, very beautiful).

Walking on tiles made of old polished tiger stones, you circle another cylinder: a floor-to-ceiling transparent glass tube that houses Hofmann’s instruments.

Stay forward, and you’ll see a small opening. Here’s your nearest chance to find a vintage Charrière in good condition.

By inhaling, “you’re connected to the origin of life on Earth but you’re also — and that’s the crazy thing about this space — you’re also the first person to exhale that air,” he says.

“You’re breathing something that’s so pure and untouched by anyone in front of you… And the beauty of that piece is that you’re going to carry it until you die.”

“You will be a small part of this installation and you will be a big part of the ventilation system, and eventually you will release this air once and for all…” He pauses: “Once you go to another country.” It means: once you die.

Breathe, a permanent installation, is opening alongside the new exhibition Charriere Hard Core, which showcases both the ambitious and scientific curiosity of the Berlin-based artist.

Hard Core items have been shown elsewhere in the world, including at the Venice Biennale, but it’s hard to imagine the whole show being anywhere other than underground at Mona, with its exposed stone, its mix of industrial and original, and its fusion of science and art. “We decided to focus on works that relate to geology in some way,” says the artist.

In Blue Fossil Entropic Stories (2013), several images show Charrière standing and frozen by the ice of Iceland, making his mark with a toaster.

Not All Those Who Walk Are Lost, glacial rocks occupy parts of the chamber. It is drilled in, with the removed posts lined up underneath. In Nobodies Dreams Survives, living snails slowly eat a calcium carbonate sculpture. In Atlas, a beautiful large round marble is mechanically polished, and slowly eroded during the exhibition. Controlled Burn is a mockumentary film about fireworks shot in Germany, Belgium and the North Sea.

The video takes you through a room with lots of stained glass, sparkling and lit like a strobe, before you plunge into a dark space where you can lie down and hear the sounds of an erupting volcano.

Hard Core episodes evoke Mona’s previous shows: Theo Merciere’s Mirrorscapeor more clearly Jonsi’s obsidian – even the immersion of the mountain Charrière is very meditative. All in all, it takes you on an epic journey through a deep and profound time in the world, looking at our relationship with the world.

“Every sculpture, every installation, every work is trying to bring a deep moment into the human experience. This is the ‘most difficult’ part of the exhibition,” says Charrière. “You can perceive things that are better (beyond) what our senses can perceive.”