FORWARD: Issue #6: Climate
Air Pollution
1,300 of Dryden Goodwin’s drawings of six Lewisham residents and clean air activists are animated in the full length version of this extract of Breathe:2022, which was exhibited in a large-scale public projection on the heavily polluted South Circular Road in Catford, London, in December 2022. Find more Invisible Dust videos of the project. Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin, commissioned by Invisible Dust, courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
1,300 of Dryden Goodwin’s drawings of six Lewisham residents and clean air activists are animated in Breathe:2022, which was exhibited in a large-scale public projection on the heavily polluted South Circular Road in Catford, London, in December 2022. Find more Invisible Dust videos of the project.
Among the most pervasive threats to public health, especially in lower-income and BIPOC communities, is air pollution.
Air pollution has been shown to impact African American and Latino communities at higher rates, and many studies show a strong correlation between air pollution and asthma attacks. Four projects on three continents underline the innovative ways that artists are combatting this climate challenge.
A multifaceted project involving drawing, animation, and community events has raised support for national legislation against pollution in the UK. Kenyans living in an informal settlement plagued by industrial emissions and the smoke of garbage fires were brought together to create plays that highlight their health concerns and identify sources of the pollution. Using an innovative Italian paint that neutralizes pollutants, Polish artists are creating large-scale murals that depict forest scenes—and clean the air like real forests. And a lauded female Pakistani architect has countered the pervasive pollution created by open-air cooking fires by designing an inexpensive stove coated in CO₂-absorbing lime plaster and featuring a chimney that reduces smoke to a minimum.
Scroll down to read more on four inspiring and impactful creative projects addressing air quality.
Breathe:2022
Portraits of real people struggling for breath, along with collaborative programming about air pollution, created emotional connections among residents, politicians, and scientists around this public health crisis.
Location: Multiple sites in Lewisham, a neighborhood in southeast London, and elsewhere in the UK.
Artist Role: Amplifying urgency | Artist-created portraits and art-led community action called attention to the physical effects of air pollution on real people.
Artist: Dryden Goodwin.
Partners + Partner Organizations: Choked Up, Mums for Lungs, Climate Action Lewisham, Ella Roberta Family Foundation, Invisible Dust, and science advisor Dr. Ian Mudway of the MRC Centre for Environment and Health, Imperial College, London.
Breathe by Dryden Goodwin, 2012 installation, commissioned by Invisible Dust. Photo courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
In 2013, at age 9, Lewisham resident Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah became the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as her cause of death. Her mother, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, fought for that designation, as Lewisham is a neighborhood in which the UK has “systematically and persistently” broken legal limits on toxic air pollution for a decade, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled.
In May 2022, Baroness and Green Party peer Jenny Jones introduced to Members of Parliament the Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill—or "Ella's Law”—which in turn inspired artist Dryden Goodwin to expand his 2012 Breathe artwork into a multisite project for the South Circular Road neighborhood in the borough of Lewisham, southeast London.
The multifaceted project included 1300 of Goodwin’s large-scale black-and-white drawings of real people—activists from Choked Up, Mums for Lungs, Climate Action Lewisham, and the Ella Roberta Family Foundation—fighting for breath. The still images, and others animated via digital screens, appeared in sites close to the heavily polluted South Circular Road, where the Kissi-Debrah family lived. Dr. Ian Mudway, of the MRC Centre for Environment and Health, Imperial College, London, was the project’s science advisor, bringing 25 years of research in environmental toxicology and early-life impacts of pollutants on urban children to the project’s development.
The six-month project was created in collaboration with Invisible Dust, a UK nonprofit that brings together artists and scientists to create artworks that incite emotional connections between efforts to address climate change and the people affected by those efforts. Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, who participated in Breathe:2022, says of the project, “It’s about awareness, about getting everybody on board.”
Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin, commissioned by Invisible Dust. Photo courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin, commissioned by Invisible Dust. Photo courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
The 2022 installation included multiple events and venues. London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens, which focuses on ecology and social justice, hosted a day of community air action and exploration; artwork from the project appeared on 250 screens in different locations and reached more than 13 million people. Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin, commissioned by Invisible Dust. Photo courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
"Drawing Breath", Breathe:2022, Pt. 1, finale projection on Lewisham's Old Town Hall, for Lewisham, London Borough of Culture 2022. The animation was co-created by over 130 Lewisham Secondary School students in partnership with artist Dryden Goodwin. The collective animation project features 800 original drawings made by the pupils in autumn 2022, across five participating schools. Find more videos from Invisible Dust. Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin, commissioned by Invisible Dust. Courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
“It’s about awareness, about getting everybody on board.”
— Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, project participant and mother of nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as her cause of death.
Breathe:2022 launch, Lewisham, London Borough of Culture. Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin, commissioned by Invisible Dust. Photo courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin, commissioned by Invisible Dust. Photo courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin, commissioned by Invisible Dust. Photo courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
The project, which began in 2012, led to Breathe for Ella in February 2023, a large-scale animation, created by Dryden Goodwin and produced by Invisible Dust, which was viewed by thousands of Londoners in support of “Ella’s Law.” The legislation has passed through the House of Lords and now is in the House of Commons.
Breathe:2022 included other events and venues as well. London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens, which focuses on ecology and social justice, hosted a day of community air action and exploration; artwork from the project appeared on 250 screens in different locations and reached more than 13 million people, courtesy of the JCDecaux Community Channel, which gives nonprofits access to advertising sites. A teaching guide for the “Drawing Breath” program was created for Lewisham’s secondary schools; and large-scale public projections appeared on Lewisham’s Old Town Hall on Catford Road.
“Politicians say people aren’t ready, but they are ready,” says Adoo-Kissi-Debrah of the collaborative project. “We can’t go back, there’s no turning back now—it’s a red alert, it’s a public health crisis.”
In May 2022, Baroness and Green Party peer Jenny Jones introduced to Members of Parliament the Clean Air (Human Rights) Bill—or "Ella's Law”—which in turn inspired artist Dryden Goodwin to expand his 2012 Breathe artwork into a multisite project. In February 2023, Breathe for Ella, a large-scale animation created by Dryden Goodwin and produced by Invisible Dust, was viewed by thousands of Londoners in support of “Ella’s Law.” The legislation has passed through the House of Lords and now is in the House of Commons. Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin, commissioned by Invisible Dust. Photo courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
“We can’t go back, there’s no turning back now—it’s a red alert, it’s a public health crisis.”
— Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, project participant and mother of nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as her cause of death.
Breathe for Ella in February 2023, a large-scale animation created by Dryden Goodwin and produced by Invisible Dust. It was viewed by thousands of Londoners in support of Ella’s law. Breathe for Ella by Dryden Goodwin, commissioned by Invisible Dust. Photo courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
The AIR (Action for Interdisciplinary Research) Network
Using multiple creative methods to establish a community-centered participatory research project, scientists and artists educated an informal and marginalized community facing multiple environmental challenges about air pollution and health.
Location: Mukuru, Nairobi, Kenya
Artist Role: Facilitating community-led solutions|Communicating complex data | Filmmakers and local artists helped residents express the perils of air pollution in diverse projects, including a festival drawing 1,500 people and plays produced for policymakers, which led to action on climate issues, lawmakers listening more closely to residents, and residents being educated on how to communicate root climate causes to officials.
Artists: Local musicians and rappers.
Partners + Partner Organizations: UK Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK Medical Research Council, Global Challenges Research Fund’s Global Public Health Partnership Awards, Wajuuku Arts Centre, Cressida Bowyer (senior research fellow, University of Portsmouth, UK), Heather Price (lecturer in environmental geography, University of Stirling, UK), community members.
Cost: USD $217,173 (GBP $168,709)
The AIR (Action for Interdisciplinary Research) Network team includes scientists and artists. Photo by Charlotte Waelde.
Mukuru is an informal, marginalized settlement where bad drainage, garbage incineration, and industrial emissions contribute to air pollution that sears residents’ eyes and noses and induces coughing and asthma attacks.
To center the knowledge of those most impacted about the causes of climate threats, and to raise awareness of Mukuru’s health crisis, creative practitioners and researchers joined with residents, artists from the Mukuru-based Wajuuku Arts Centre, and scientists from Africa and Europe in creating the AIR (Action for Interdisciplinary Research) Network.
Supported from 2017 to 2019 with Global Challenges Research funds from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, led by SEI York, the AIR Network used culturally relevant artistic methods to “create a democratic and participatory research project." Creativity was key in involving the locals in creative decision making, explain Bowyer and Price, two of the UK-based researchers. “The community educated us on which of the creative methods would work well in Mukuru. . . Music was also highlighted as an effective and important communication tool. Local musicians and rappers composed songs to raise awareness about air pollution and the AIR Network itself.” Due to this engagement, the team learned more from residents about the sources of pollution, they say. “If we had gone into the community with aims and ambitions that had already been decided according to the commonly acknowledged causes of air pollution (traffic, industry, cooking methods), we may not have had space to reveal or acknowledge these other sources. Instead, we identified issues that the community recognizes as indirect causes of air pollution, such as workers’ rights, alleyways between dwellings that are too narrow for fire-fighting equipment, and poor waste management.”
In Mukuru, an informal, marginalized settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, bad drainage, garbage incineration, and industrial emissions contribute to air pollution that sears residents’ eyes and noses and induces coughing and asthma attacks. Photo by William Apondo.
Thanks to community engagement, the team reports that they learned more from residents about local sources of pollution, such as waste burning. Photo by Miranda Loh.
“If we had gone into the community with aims and ambitions that had already been decided. . . we may not have had space to reveal or acknowledge these other sources.”
— Cressida Bowyer (senior research fellow, University of Portsmouth) and Heather Price (lecturer in environmental geography, University of Stirling)
Throughout the project, filmmakers helped residents share personal experiences of air pollution via digital storytelling. Short plays created through forum theater—one of the techniques developed by Brazilian director-activist Augusto Boal under the umbrella of the “Theatre of the Oppressed”—addressed key air pollution problems. Residents interacted directly with the actors, exploring solutions to problems presented onstage. The forum plays were subsequently developed into theater productions designed to break down hierarchical divisions among policymakers, government officials, and residents. Wajuuku Arts Centre artists painted maps on which community members identified new pollution hot spots and sources. Local musicians and rappers composed and performed songs about air pollution and the AIR Network.
In September 2018, AIR Network’s activities culminated in the arts festival Hood2Hood. “Our creative methods and the involvement of the community allowed us to recognize a series of sources of pollution that we might not have otherwise,” Bowyer and Price said in a summary of the project.
Members of the AIR Network have since worked with communities in the Tupumue, Action Against Covid Transmission (ACT), and Sustainable Transitions to End Plastic Pollution (STEPP) projects, to further develop and empower activists in African communities.
In addressing complex public health challenges such as air pollution, Bowyer and Price write, “using creativity is key: it allows non-experts to participate more fully in this process so that initiatives and interventions will be culturally relevant and more effective.”
Short plays created through forum theater addressed key air pollution problems. Residents interacted directly with the actors, exploring solutions to problems presented onstage. Photo by William Apondo.
The forum plays were subsequently developed into theater productions designed to break down hierarchical divisions among policymakers, government officials, and residents. Photo by William Apondo.
“Using creativity is key: it allows non-experts to participate more fully in this process so that initiatives and interventions will be culturally relevant and more effective.”
— Bowyer and Price, two AIR Network researchers
Wajuuku Arts Centre artists painted maps on which community members identified new pollution hot spots and sources. Photo by Jared Ositu AKA Omae.
A civic collaboration with artists using pollutant-neutralizing paint beautifies cities and explores the possibilities for cleaning the air.
Location: Throughout Poland
Artist Role: Mitigating a climate threat | Artists throughout Poland have collaborated with city governments to create murals with paints that neutralize air pollutants.
Artists: Marcin Czaja (in Bydgoszcz); Dawid Ryski and Maciek Polak (in Warsaw); multiple artists overall.
Partners + Partner Organizations: Multiple city governments and nonprofit energy organizations.
This is one project where artists are experimenting with different materials and technologies in the important work of directly mitigating air pollutant threats. The efficacy of this technology is still being determined, and artists are part of the innovative effort to test approaches such as pollutant-neutralizing paint. We need artists—who are creative problem solvers—to be part of this experimentation in the climate sector. Projects and innovations like these start important conversations with developers as they think about their materials.
Young artists known as Brave Kids paint murals with KNOxOUT paint in Wrocław in 2021. Brave Kids is part of the broader European project CULPEER4change. The group have painted several murals, using ecological paints for the first time in Wrocław.
In Poland, coal generates 70 percent of the nation’s electricity and heats around one-third of households, creating some of Europe’s worst air pollution—Polish cities regularly top global air pollution rankings—and resulting in tens of thousands of premature deaths annually. During winter cold snaps, homeowners increase coal use, making conditions even worse.
One creative way in which Polish muralists are addressing this public health issue is by creating murals with an innovative paint made by the Italian company Airlite. According to the City of Bydgoszcz’s website, one square meter (10.7 square feet) of anti-smog paint may absorb 0.44 g of nitric oxide—the toxic substance emitted by cars, industrial emissions, and power stations. The same amount is absorbed by one tree per day. These potentially purifying paints have shown some artists the positive potential of their materials to have an impact on air pollution, and has led to experimentation with these paints as well as other materials that might directly help reduce pollution quantities.
As artist Ewa Ciepielewska (cofounder of the Luxus group) explains, the “paints work on a principle comparable to the photosynthesis process in plants, where chlorophyll catalyses the energy production reaction. Similarly, Airlite uses the property of titanium dioxide to produce reactive molecules that neutralize air pollutants into inert compounds.” As a result, she adds, a forest painted on 100 square meters (more than 1,000 square feet) of a building wall can reduce air pollution in the same ways a biological forest would.
Eco mural done in collaboration with Brave Kids, 2021.
Eco mural painted in collaboration with Brave Kids in Wroclaw, Poland, 2021.
The eco-mural Panna Wolna by Andrzej Pągowski in Warsaw, 2022. The artist was inspired by the women he saw at the Polish-Ukrainian border crossing.
A forest painted on 100 square meters (more than 1,000 square feet) of a building wall can reduce air pollution in the same ways a biological forest would.
— Ewa Ciepielewska, artist and cofounder of the Luxus group
Source, painted by artist Marcin Czaja in Bydgoszcz, Poland, is an example of artists collaborating with city governments to make murals with innovative paint to neutralize air pollutants. Photo © Marcin Czaja.
Source, painted by artist Marcin Czaja in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Photo © Marcin Czaja
A mural by Krakow artist Marcin Czaja on the façade of a high-rise building in Bydgoszcz covers 374 square meters (about 4,000 square feet)—with an air-purifying impact equivalent to planting 374 trees. Ciepielewska’s mural in Bielsko-Białam covers 100 square meters. In Katowice, prior to the World Urban Forum in 2022, Jan Michał Raspazjan covered the walls of a tenement building in a mural using photocatalytic paints. A 126-square-meter (1,300-square-foot) mural in Zabrze by Paweł Lisowski was expected to purify 11,340,000 cubic meters (more than 400 million cubic feet) of air within a month.
The painted building walls and façades often depict woodland and water scenes, and the plants, animals, and people who live there, to increase ecological awareness as the paint does its work. “Big cities are struggling today with civilization challenges, including polluted air,” Wojciech Ignacok, former CEO of Tauron Polska Energia, a partner of the city authorities in the project, told the urban news site themayor.eu. “The anti-smog paints used for the mural are called smog eaters. By implementing such projects, we want to show that modern is also close to nature.”
Muralists experimenting with materials that may help tackle some of the harms of climate degradation demonstrate the innovation and creativity alive in the artistic community. Other public artists continue to explore with environment-cleaning materials, and while these technologies are still being refined and studied, it is clear that artists are already critical partners to fostering climate-resilient places.
Bez Smogu (without smog) ekologiczny (ecology) mural in Targówek, a district in Warsaw Poland, by Grupa Malujemy Murale.
Artist Marcin Czaja paints the mural Planting Trees in Libiąż, Poland. Photo © Marcin Czaja.
Gdańsk, Poland eco mural NATURALNIE Niemcy (Naturally Germany) by Grupa Malujemy Murale, who painted eco murals from the German tourism office in six Polish cities.
Pakistan’s first woman architect developed an eco-stove that empowers impoverished women while reducing air pollution.
Location: Pakistan
Artist Role: Mitigating a climate threat | The architect and nonprofit organizations she founded developed and funded an innovative, inexpensive stove.
Artist: Yasmeen Lari.
Partners + Partner Organizations: Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, Barefoot Social Architecture.
Cost: $8 per stove.
All images courtesy Heritage Foundation of Pakistan.
In disadvantaged communities throughout Pakistan, women cook over open flames with firewood, a process that pollutes the air with carbon, contributes to deforestation, and increases the risk of fire, skin burns, and respiratory and heart disease. In 2014, Pakistan’s first woman architect, Yasmeen Lari, developed a mud-and-lime-plaster stove through Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, which she cofounded with her husband. The foundation works with nonliterate Pakistani women to raise awareness of the implications of open-flame cooking.
Through Lari's Barefoot Social Architecture program, which gives impoverished Pakistanis profitable livelihoods by providing them with paid entrepreneurial work on eco-friendly projects, Heritage Foundation of Pakistan paid these entrepreneurs two dollars for each woman they trained to build a stove, and covered the six-dollar cost of materials. Made from locally sourced mud and CO₂-absorbing lime plaster, the stove uses cow dung and sawdust bricks for fuel and includes a hand-washing area, a ledge where cooking utensils or dinnerware are kept, and a chimney that keeps smoke to a minimum. The stove sits on a raised platform, providing a clean area for families to enjoy meals.
Pakistan Chuhla, gasification process.
Pakistan Chuhla, 3D sectional details.
In 2018 the stove won the UN’s World Habitat prize. By the end of 2019, more than 60,000 stoves had been built, each one using 50 to 70 percent less firewood than a traditional stove.
In 2018 the stove won the UN’s World Habitat prize. By the end of 2019, more than 60,000 stoves had been built, each one using 50 to 70 percent less firewood than a traditional stove. According to Heritage Foundation research, Lari told the architecture and design magazine Dezeen, “The stove improves cooking efficiency by around 25 percent. It also becomes a focal point in the village where women from neighboring houses could meet and interact, strengthening social ties." The women also use leftover plaster and paint to create patterns on the stoves, turning each one into what she calls a "spectacular work of art."
Though the stoves are designed for cooking and not intended as heaters, families also use the stove as a heat source in winter. Because of this practice, Lari has begun developing a new model specifically for indoor heating, also using local materials.
“The stove improves cooking efficiency by around 25 percent. It also becomes a focal point in the village where women from neighboring houses could meet and interact, strengthening social ties.”
— Ewa Ciepielewsk
FORWARD: Issue #6
Climate
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