Still Together: A Collective Breath + Reflection Experience

Still Together is a transformative breathwork and reflection experience designed exclusively for SFMOMA. In the museum’s luminous White Box, we’ll create a sanctuary for participants to pause, breathe, and reconnect — both with themselves and each other.

This unique collaboration brings together Ashley Neese, renowned breathwork facilitator and author of How to Breathe, with Carissa Potter, beloved Bay Area artist whose work captures the tender complexities of human emotion. Together, they’ll guide participants through 80 minutes of grounded breathwork, visual meditation, and collective stillness.

Inspired by large-scale gatherings like The Big Quiet, Still Together reimagines what’s possible when contemporary art meets contemplative practice. Ashley’s trauma-informed facilitation creates a safe container for deep listening, while Carissa’s journaling invitations offer gentle anchors for reflection. Ambient soundscapes by Danny Paul Grody will carry participants through the journey, creating an immersive experience that honors both individual insight and communal healing.

In our increasingly fragmented world, Still Together offers something radical: a shared moment of authentic presence. This isn’t just wellness programming — it’s an artwork in itself, where breath becomes medium, stillness becomes statement, and community becomes creation.

About the Artists

Carissa Potter is an artist and writer exploring connection, emotion, and being human. She’s the founder of People I’ve Loved, creator of the conversation series Bad at Keeping Secrets, and author of five books including Breathe Through It and It’s Okay to Feel Things Deeply. Based in Oakland, she lives with her partner and daughter and is learning to meet people with love and compassion where they are at.

Ashley Neese is a breathwork teacher, author, and mother exploring slow living, authentic presence, and the practice of embodied compassion. She holds an MFA from CCA and is certified in Somatic Experiencing®. Ashley has spent 12 years developing Regenerative Breathwork™, a trauma-informed methodology that weaves together gentle breathing, feminist psychology, and nature-based healing. Her practice has been featured in Vogue, WSJ, Sunset Magazine, and Elle Japan. Ashley writes The Deeper Call newsletter and is the author of How to Breathe and Permission to Rest, both published by Ten Speed Press. She lives with her partner, three children, and a menagerie of rescue animals on their ranch in the Sierra Foothills, where tending the land deeply informs her practice.

Accessibility Information

Participants will be invited to sit or lie down in the White Box. Yoga mats and chairs will be available; participants may bring their own yoga mats, if desired.