| 11 : 15 – 19 June 2017 |

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Have you sniffed polluted air of your city in a ‘Pollution Pod’?

Air…Fresh Air…out there everywhere. That’s what we expect after opening doors and windows. But air almost everywhere today is now carrying pollutants.

We walk and breathe polluted air every day which is quite alarming. The gases we end sucking up every day is a slow killer leading to various serious health effects. Not to forget the severe climatic changes too! So, how is it to live and sniff your city’s polluted air? Particularly if your city lists among the most polluted cities of the world? This realization has been brought forward and displayed in form of an installation called ‘Pollution Pod’.

Michael Pinsky, a British visual artist of international repute has created this innovative art installation which is a part of the undergoing STARMUS festival in Norway. Pinsky was commissioned by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) to create an installation. It’s developed as a part of a 4-year research project which studies mechanism required for production and reception of visual art. The creative artist has come up with a series of domes containing pollution from cities around the world to test whether art can really change people’s perceptions of climate change.

 

Image Credit – Climart

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About Pollution Pod –

Pollution Pods consists of interconnected geodesic domes forming a ring. Each of the domes contain air quality of different cities in world: Beijing, Delhi, London, Sao Paulo and Tautra, a peninsula in North Norway. Air in each dome is a carefully developed mix of ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide that pollutes these cities.

Every visitor will pass through increasingly polluted cells.

They range from dry and cold locations to hot and humid starting from a dome containing fresh air from Norwegian coast. The concept behind the installation is to make people realize that our cities though apart are interconnected through environment. He hopes that his installation will remind people of the toxic gases inhaled and their effects left by us on the environment.

Installation at  Somerset House, London ©Peter Macdiarmid

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Updates –

As a part of World Earth Day celebrations, the installation was displayed at Somerset House in London from 18 – 25 Apr 2018.

21 September – 24 September 2019

Almost fifty years after Gustav Metzger’s rejected proposal for the United Nations first environmental conference in Stockholm, in which 120 cars were to be placed in a square with their exhausts filling a plastic-sheeted cube, the Pollution Pods are being presented by the World Health Organisation at the UN Climate Action Summit.

26 October – 29 October 2019

Cape Farewell have partnered with Activate Performing Arts to present Pollution Pods on Brownsea Island. It’s a wildlife sanctuary that sits in the middle of Poole Harbour, with dramatic views to the Purbeck Hills. Thriving natural habitats, including woodland, heathland and a lagoon, have created havens for wildlife, such as the red squirrel and a huge variety of birds.

 

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Pollution Pod is definitely a step towards a realization of our polluted air.

Text and Image Credit – © Michael Pinsky