The Breathing Garden

Hands tremble and voices fade, yet through painting, they reclaim expression and connection.

The Breathing Garden is a luminous sculptural installation celebrating the creative voices of people living with Parkinson’s. At its heart are delicate watercolour paintings created through the Tingey Painting with Parkinson’s program — artworks shaped not despite Parkinson’s, but through the unique movement, rhythm and sensitivity it brings to the creative process.

Illuminart has supported the community in the transformation of these intimate paintings into an immersive garden of light. Gently glowing sculptural forms respond like living canvases, shifting with colour, breath and atmospheric movement.

A layered soundscape — composed from field recordings, interview fragments, and the artists’ own voices — deepens the sensory experience, inviting audiences to slow down and encounter the artwork with openness and care. In a festival known for large-scale spectacle, The Breathing Garden offers a quieter kind of wonder: beauty born from resilience, creative agency reclaimed, and the nuanced humanity of people whose stories are often unseen. It invites audiences to move slowly, to notice deeply, and to discover connection through shared sensory experience.

This work is a collaboration between Illuminart Stories in Light and Tingey Painting with Parkinson’s, honouring creative expression as a vital part of wellbeing and identity.

About The Artist

Tingey Painting with Parkinson’s is a long-running creative arts program founded in 1994 by Churchill Fellow Nancy Tingey OAM.

Based in the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra, the program offers a unique form of art-based engagement for people living with Parkinson’s. Participants use watercolour paints, droppers, feathers and spray techniques while listening to contemplative music — a methodology designed to reduce pressure, support fluid expression, and allow each artist to become fully absorbed in their creative process. Their artworks have been widely exhibited in Australia and internationally, and have formed the basis of acclaimed creative collaborations, including with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra.

The Breathing Garden extends this legacy through a creative partnership with Illuminart Stories in Light, an award-winning Australian company specialising in digital storytelling.