About 2.5 billion years ago, a mass production of oxygen by bacteria paved the way for life on earth as we know it.

In a dark spherical underground room at Hobart's Museum of Old and New Art, Julian Charriere is inviting people to breathe in pure air from the ancient era.

"It's not only artwork, it's a scientific experiment," say the award-winning French-Swiss artist, who explores time and human connection to the natural world.

A glass column and transparent contraption with a rock stool in front of it sits in the room's centre.

Inside, air that has been lodged in rock since the emergence of oxygen in the billions-year-old event known as the Great Oxidation Event is released.

People are allowed in to inhale, one at a time.

"You're the very first person to inhale this oxygen," Charriere said.

"You breathe in something that is so pure and something that has not been touched by any being before you.

"You will carry it until you die. You carry a small part of this installation and a big part of the oxygen cycle."

Charriere said he became fascinated as a child by the Great Oxidation Event, which was driven by photosynthetic cyanobacteria.

The piece took years to develop with the help of chemical engineers and other scientists and will be a permanent feature of the gallery.

Alongside the aptly named Breathe is several rooms containing Hard Core - Charriere's first solo exhibition in Australia.

Featured are ancient rocks, sculptures made of coal and lava as well as a disco-like showing where walls vibrate, mimicking ground tremors.

There are fossil "vending machines" and snails who glacially feed on marble statues made from the Carrara mountains that Michelangelo sculpted from.

There is also a machine that uses water to slowly erode a giant stromatolite rock sphere hundreds of millions of years old, paying tribute to the passage of time.

Hard Core opens on Saturday until March 29 and will be run in conjunction with winter festival Dark Mofo, which begins on Thursday.