Forms of Every Breath You Take
by Saberah Malik & Max Jahns
Above: “Forms of Every Breath You Take 3 (E. Huxleyi Bloom) Detail” — Saberah Malik
Forms of Every breath you take explores the morphology of phytoplankton through a three-dimensional, hanging composition of molded and dyed fabrics.
MEDIUM
Polyester fabrics, polyester tubing, fishnet, foam sphere, and felt balls
PIECES
Two finished, three planned
TOPIC
Form and function of marine photosynthetic microorganisms
LOCATION
All open ocean environments
"Forms of Every Breath You Take 2 (E Huxleyi Bloom) Detail" — Saberah Malik
"Forms of Every Breath You Take 3 (Sea Salp Chain)" — Saberah Malik
"Forms of Every Breath You Take 1 Detail" — Saberah Malik
What are these plankton?
Picture yourself collecting a small bucket of water from a beach. As you pull the salty water up from beneath the splashing waves, investigate your bucket. Despite its clear appearance you’ll be harvesting millions or even billions of tiny creatures who call the water their home. We call these creatures plankton.
Plankton are microscopically small aquatic organisms, often much smaller than the width of a human hair. Most plankton cannot swim; they are drifters pulled through the water by tides and storms and waves. The lives of these minuscule organisms are short, most do not live longer than a few days. On its own each plankton is insignificant, an unseen gelatinous ball floating amongst the current. But plankton are powerful; they are responsible for creating more than 50% of the oxygen in every breath you take. There is a little-known secret plankton kept from us for years, and the key to understanding their strength and grace lies in one word, morphology, the study of form and function.
Did you know?
Phytoplankton produce over 50% of the world’s oxygen every year. In one bucket of water from the beach you can find more than 1 billion microbes.
Phytoplankton and textiles
Forms of Every Breath You Take is a collaboration between Saberah Malik, an accomplished textile artist, and Max Jahns, a Ph.D. candidate in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography. Through a three-dimensional, hanging composition of molded and dyed fabrics, Malik and Jahns explore the morphology of phytoplankton, and demonstrate the importance and beauty of these tiny heroes. The creatures in the piece are made entirely of fabric but are representations of real microscopic organisms you could find in any drop of water, all of which are responsible for life as we know it today. The fabricated forms are semi-transparent to represent the gelatinous, light penetrating morphology of single-celled planktonic organisms. Plankton are made up mainly of a jelly-like substance called cytoplasm which is molded by a membrane or a cell wall to create the dazzlingly intricate shapes and designs of these microscopic creatures. In a case of life imitating art, Malik’s process for creating the planktonic forms starts with a soft, malleable textile which is then molded and structured into the beautiful representations displayed in the piece, not unlike the processes that shape the plankton themselves.
“Forms of Every Breath You Take 1” — Saberah Malik
Making of the project
Forms of Every Breath You Take is illuminated by ultraviolet lighting, and each creature has been constructed with readily available textiles where some dyes have the ability fluoresce. The use of fluorescent dyes and ultraviolet light highlights another important facet of plankton morphology: Color. Forms of Every Breath You Take focuses on a particular class of pigmented plankton, called phytoplankton, which absorb light to power cells and allow them to grow in a process called photosynthesis. Each pigment only absorbs certain wavelengths or colors of light and reflects colors back or emits excess energy as fluoresce. You can directly observe the processes of absorption, reflection, and emission of light, the same processes that power photosynthesis, through the combination of colors, forms, and lighting used in the piece.
For Malik and Jahns, Forms of Every Breath You Take has been an opportunity to learn and grow. Malik grew up on the water in Lahore, Pakistan, but never learned how to swim. From a young age she found the movement of the waves and the light shinning through them beautiful, but admits she never thought she’d work on a project delving into what goes on beneath the waves. Jahns grew up in the Midwestern United States but knew mainly only of the water in freshwater lakes. At the age of 21 they took a trip to Denmark, and found a love for truly open water, simultaneously learning about the incredible abilities of marine phytoplankton, and how their morphologies have been refined into these beautiful forms over the course of billions of years.
Looking Forward
By bringing the beauty and importance of phytoplankton to public attention, Malik and Jahns hope to inspire audiences to learn more about these heroic creatures. There is an incredible urgency to care for and preserve the phytoplankton in the ocean. Many phytoplankton are at risk due to the effects of human induced climate change. Forms of Every Breath You Take was designed to display the striking morphologies of phytoplankton and educate people on the significance of these organisms. We hope our work will galvanize our audience to take action, however small, to protect the health of our oceans and our planet.
Saberah & Max
To find out more about the artist and scientist who are behind this project, visit their section of the Artists & Scientists page via the link below.