The tube at her lips is how she breathes, and she controls the flow of air herself. This is Shrink, a piece by the Belgian artist Lawrence Malstaf, born in Bruges in 1972. Two large clear plastic sheets close around a performer, and a device slowly sucks out the air between them. As the pressure grows, the body freezes into tiny folds, and the performer moves slowly from one pose to the next. In Manchester in 2010, the volunteers first took a one-day workshop to learn how to breathe, move and pose inside it. Malstaf has called it “a kind of training machine to teach you how to adapt to your environment” and “maybe it’s kind of a meditation machine too.” A reporter who tried it found it “an oddly comforting experience.” Could you stay calm in there? Credits: @lawrencemalstaf Follow @insidehistory to learn something new every day.