Description:

Aotearoa has seen an increase in vaping use by rangatahi, with survey data revealing between 2019 and 2021, the percentage of young people vaping daily more than tripled, particularly Māori.

In collaboration with our team of young co-designers, the Hā Collective, and partners Te Whatu Ora, we created Protect Your Breath – a campaign that aims to reduce vaping harm for young people by anchoring itself in the realities and ideas of rangatahi.

The campaign centres the power of hā – our breath. It seeks to offer young people a moment to become mindful of their breath, encourages rangatahi to reflect on their values and build confidence in the choices they make.

Recently, we’ve extended the campaign to surface the Ao Māori narratives of breath that emerged through the development process. In our oversaturated visual world, we wanted to create a space of calm and prioritise another sense – listening.

Connect to Hā is a six-episode meditative podcast which provides a crafted audio moment where rangatahi can pause, connect to their breath and think about how it’s a part of everything we do.

Audio is easily scrolled past on a social media feed, so each episode is accompanied by contemporary 3D animations that bring the playful, air-filled aesthetic of the campaign to life. The unique animations metaphorically reference air and the inhalation and exhalation of breath.

To reflect the meditative intent of the series, our visual motifs live in a minimalist world, devoid of clutter and unnecessary visual noise. The aesthetic is clean, clear and balanced, with hypnotic animated loops that help the listener pause and focus. Both the audio and the animations are slow, calming and repetitive to further instil the hyperkinetic visual landscape and guide rangatahi through the series.

To craft the narratives of each podcast, we held wānanga with tohunga who helped us uncover pūrakau and concepts connected to the underlying themes of Protect Your Breath.

Through wānanga we found that the conceptual thread of ‘hau’, or vitality, wove together the inherent importance of breath in all we are. The conceptual cycle of hā (breath), au (self), hau (vitality) and hauhā (exhalation) became strategic and creative scaffolding for the podcast series and the wider campaign.

While each episode of the Connect to Hā audio series implicitly connects with one or many of these concepts in different ways, there are moments that explicitly surface these ideas for the listener, encouraging them to understand the power of their breath through this cycle from hā to hauhā.

The series builds towards our final episode – Tihei Mauri Ora – which goes into more depth to tell the story of Tāne and Hineahuone and the origins of the phrase ‘tihei mauri ora’ – the breath of life that signalled the beginnings of the ira tangata.

Connect to Hā helps the listener understand how their breath is a fundamental part of who they are and how it connects them to te taiao and all the way back to the atua. Breath is a taonga. And that’s worth protecting.