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In the Air gallery captions

“The air itself is one vast library on whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered.”

Charles Babbage, 1837

Air is something we all share. It moves freely across borders and through bodies, sustaining us and connecting us to others. We can live for only a few minutes without the oxygen it contains, and yet air is full of human-made and natural materials, including viruses and pollution that pose a threat to our health.

Taking inspiration from inventor Charles Babbage’s idea of “atmospheric memory”, this exhibition considers the air as an archive of our actions. From the delicate balance between the earth and its atmosphere, to the impact of pollution on our health, to the ways in which air is weaponised, ‘In the Air’ explores our precarious relationship to the air we breathe.

A Roomful of Air

David Rickard, 2022

These concrete blocks represent the exact weight of the air in this gallery, adjusted for altitude, humidity and warmth. The work draws attention to the materiality of air which, although unseen, has a weight that would crush our bodies if they didn’t also contain air.

Courtesy of the artist and Copperfield London

A Bag of Air

Tacita Dean, 1995

This film depicts a short journey in a hot-air balloon – itself a bag of gas lighter than air – as the artist attempts to capture a cloud. As the balloon rises, Dean narrates instructions for collecting a bag of air, “so intoxicated with the essence of spring that when it is distilled and prepared… will produce an oil of gold, remedy enough to heal all ailments”.

Duration: 3 minutes

Courtesy of the artist, Frith Street, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York & Paris

A Bag of Air by Tacita Dean, 1995 – Transcript

“If you rise at dawn in a clear sky and during the month of March, they say you can catch a bag of air so intoxicated with the essence of spring that when it is distilled and prepared, it will produce an oil of gold, remedy enough to heal all ailments.

“And as you rise at dawn to the upper ether, and lean out to catch the bag of air, they say you are trapping the ascending dew on its voyage from Earth to Heaven.

“And if you repeat this process each clear dawn for a thousand mornings, you will gather enough essence to fill a sealed flask, and to begin your manufacture.

“And in your flask will be a delicacy of substance that is both Celestial and Terrestrial. And if you separate the distillate from the residue, each time and over many months, and until you reunite them at the end of your manufacture, they say you will have transformed your bag of air into a Golden Elixir; a preparation of etheric medicine capable of treating all disharmonies in the body and soul.”

The Air Below Us

“And what could be more common that air? Is there anything we share more intimately and inevitably with every other being on the planet?”

Daisy Lafarge, 2022

The earth, sea and air are engaged in a continual exchange that creates the conditions for life. The story of our breathable atmosphere began around 3 billion years ago. Microscopic organisms, called cyanobacteria, began to photosynthesise sunlight, absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. These tiny bacteria transformed the world.

Today most of the oxygen in our air is still produced by organisms in the sea – phytoplankton, algae and seaweed – with the rest coming from forests. However, the delicate make-up of the air is at risk. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, around a quarter of which is absorbed by the oceans, increasing the acidity of the seas. Excess carbon dioxide is pushed into the atmosphere, removing oxygen and reversing the process that made our air breathable.

Stromatolites

c. 3.5 billion years old

Stromatolites are microbial reefs formed in shallow water from layers of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). The layers become fossilised, while the top surface photosynthesises the sun’s energy and turns it into oxygen, pumping it into the ocean and air. Before cyanobacteria existed, oxygen only amounted to around 1 per cent of the air, compared to 21 per cent today. These reefs were some of the first life forms on earth.

Desmidiea, Melethallia

‘Art Forms of Nature’, Ernst Haeckel, 1899–1904

Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) is known for his intricate studies of plankton. These illustrations show phytoplankton, tiny plants that play a key part in ocean and freshwater ecosystems, arranged for aesthetic impact. Haeckel was a supporter of Darwin and drew elaborate trees of life to chart his evolutionary theories. But he also promoted racist ideas of polygenism – that different human races evolved separately as different species. Such theories were used to justify European colonial violence and slavery.

Wellcome Collection, 674505i

Laminaria digitata, Laurencia pinnatifida (osmunita), Griffithsia setacea, Enteromorphaintestinalis

Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions

Vol. 1 part 1, Vol. 1 part 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4

Anna Atkins, 1843–53

Anna Atkins (1799–1871) was a botanist and photographer who documented aquatic plant life. Algae encompass a diverse range of forms and sizes, ranging from the microscopic to over 200 metres in length, and Atkins collected and classified many variations. These cyanotypes are produced by laying algae flat on paper coated with photosensitive paint, which is then subjected to light to form silhouettes. The publication, of which only 17 copies were made, is the first photography book ever produced.

Horniman Museum and Gardens, H1901-04

Gornergletscher from On Top Figure 2, Gornergletscher from On Top Figure 20

Irene Kopelman, 2017 

Irene Kopelman’s work engages with sublime landscapes that can be difficult to represent due to their constantly evolving state. The Gorner Glacier is one of the largest ice masses in the Alps and is receding due to global warming. Glacial ice forms an atmospheric archive of life on earth. Air trapped in the ice can be analysed for fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen. This information forms a valuable history of the earth through its air.

Courtesy of the artist and Labor, Mexico City

A tiny world and countless compositions in it

Irene Kopelman, 2019–20

Irene Kopelman collaborated with the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) over a 12-month period to collect samples from the Wadden Sea. Peering through a microscope, Kopelman painted plankton to document sea health over an extended period. Using watercolour to paint live specimens, Kopelman evokes earlier forms of botany, while acknowledging the impossibility of capturing the fluctuating properties of nature.

Courtesy of the artist and Labor, Mexico City

The Air Around Us

“We definitely don’t all breathe the same air, it’s a myth. Lung disease is a poor person’s disease.”

Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, 2021

Inventor and philosopher Charles Babbage (1791–1871) described air as an atmospheric archive, with every spoken word recorded within it. While the air may not be the library of words he imagined, it can be seen as an archive of our personal and collective actions.

But who is responsible for what ends up in our air? While air is a free resource, clean air remains unequally distributed. Our cities and buildings are engineered around the circulation of clean and dirty air. Due to dominant winds, poorer areas of our cities are exposed to disproportionate levels of toxic air. Air pollution is a form of slow violence that is invisible but has vast implications for our health.

Death by Pollution

Black and Brown Films, 2021

Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah was nine years old when she died from an asthma attack brought on by high levels of air pollution in London in 2013. Following extensive campaigning by her mother, Rosamund, Ella is the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed on her death certificate as a cause of death. Rosamund continues to campaign in Ella’s name to draw attention to the impacts of air pollution.

Duration: 9 mins 49 secs

Air Morphologies

Matterlurgy & artsXR, 2022

In this panoramic film, microscopic airborne particles invite you to reflect on materials that are in the air, yet remain unseen. The particle Fly Ash, produced from coal-burning power plants, speaks of its material composition and potential health effects. Matterlurgy’s work explores the critical ecologies of climate change. For this film, they collaborated with immersive production studio artsXR to explore the toxicity of air.

Duration: 6 mins

Air Morphologies Transcript

by Matterlurgy & artsXR, 2022

We are particulate matter,
fragments of human and non-human activity suspended, in the air.
We are solid, liquid, gaseous: coarse and fine particles,
acting and reacting in the atmosphere. I am Fly Ash,
I form in the furnaces
of coal-fired power plants, I am the un-burnable trace of electrical production.
I am composed of glass, metals and the minerals quartz, mullite, and hematite.
I travel long distances, blown by the wind.
I take residence in bodies, landfills and lagoons,
leaching contaminant metals, in the lung and in the land.
Breathe in, constricted airflow. Breathe out, respiratory distress. Breathe in,
scarred tissue. Breathe out, chemical relations. Breathe in,
shared vulnerabilities. Breathe out,
toxic legacies. Breathe in, geographical disparity. Breathe out,
uneven exposures. Breathe in,
Social imaginaries. Breathe out.

Choked Up Campaign, 2021

Choked Up are a group of Black and brown teenagers living in areas affected by air pollution in London who campaign for access to clean air to be enshrined in law. Formed in response to the dangerous levels of air pollution in London – which greatly exceeds World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines – the group installed these guerrilla street signs across the capital to highlight the disproportionate impact that toxic air has on people of colour.

Courtesy of Choked Up, 2021

Fumifugium: or the inconvenience of the aer and smoak of London dissipated. Together with some remedies humbly proposed

John Evelyn, 1661

This pamphlet is one of the first known treatises on air pollution and is directly addressed to King Charles II. Split into three sections, it explores the effects of dirty air on people’s health, suggests moving polluting industries out of the city and outlines ways to improve air quality by planting flowers and trees. Evelyn’s views on the dangers of coal smoke were controversial at the time but remained influential. The text was reprinted by various environmental campaigners in the 1930s, 1970s and as recently as 2011.

Wellcome Collection, EPB/B/21955

The Peril in the Air

The Peps Company, 1913

This advert for cough and cold tablets represents air as a harbinger of death. The wind, depicted as a grim reaper, plays on society’s fears at the time. New military technologies such as aerial bombing and chemical warfare induced terror, while unclean urban air harboured illnesses such as bronchitis, influenza and tuberculosis.

Wellcome Collection, P953

Guilty Chimneys, Clean Air Begins at Home, Pollution from Road Vehicles

Environmental Protection UK, c.1950–80

Environmental Protection UK grew out of the Coal Smoke Abatement Society, which was originally formed in 1898. The Society was instrumental in the introduction of the 1926 Public Health (Smoke Abatement Act) and the Clean Air Act of 1956, prompted by the Great London Smog in 1952 which killed thousands of people. As the prevalence of coal was reduced, their focus shifted to industrial and traffic pollution.

Wellcome Collection, SA/EPU/H/4/1-2

Ringelmann Telesmoke

W Ottway & Co Ltd, c. 1960

The Ringelmann Telesmoke was designed to visualise air pollution levels. It was used in association with the Ringelmann Smoke Chart, which was originally developed in Paris in the late 19th century by Professor Maximilien Ringelmann. The charts illustrated five shades of grey to measure against the density of smoke. This Telesmoke was intended to be used to determine if pollution levels were adhering to the Clean Air Act of 1956.

Wellcome Collection, SA/EPU/K

Breathe:2022

Dryden Goodwin, 2022

A selection of drawings from a multi-site public art project

These drawings are of six Lewisham residents and activists who are striving for climate justice and improved air quality. They are a selection from over 1,000 studies the artist has produced, capturing each person engaged in the act of breathing.

Enlarged and installed as posters on railway bridges, streetside hoardings and buildings alongside the heavily polluted South Circular Road in Lewisham, the project will culminate in a large-scale animation of the drawings.

Produced by Invisible Dust and commissioned by The Albany for We Are Lewisham. We Are Lewisham is presented by Lewisham Council and the Albany as part of the Mayor’s London Borough of Culture 2022. 

Breathe:2022

Participants in conversation with the artist

Listen to the perspectives of the featured six Lewisham residents as they talk about their relationship to air pollution and how they are advocating for a clean-air future.

Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, founder of Ella Roberta Family Foundation

Tafari McCalla, age 10, electric vehicle enthusiast

Anjali Raman-Middleton, A-level student and founder of Choked Up

Alice Tate-Harte, campaigner and member of Mums for Lungs

Heath Cole-Goodwin, son of the artist, who was drawn for Goodwin’s original Breathe artwork in 2012 when he was five years old

Ted Burke, London Campaign Organiser at Friends of the Earth and lead organiser for Clean Air for Catford

Duration: 9 mins

Breathe:2022 by Dryden Goodwin: Participants in conversation with the artist – Transcript

Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, founder of Ella Roberta Family Foundation

Why did I get involved in this? One of the things that still is not able to go down, much to my dismay, is the number of children who die from asthma. That figure in London between eight to 12 has not changed. We definitely don’t all breathe the same air. It is a complete myth, and I’ve also learned lung disease seems to be a poor person’s disease. Seeing constant traffic on the South Circular is probably triggers for me, but that’s something I’ve just come to accept really recently. No, of course I feel my daughter’s death deeply, but there’s just something about seeing a woman with a buggy walking up and down the South Circular. It probably gets to me more than the average person.

I believe art is a way of making the invisible visible, so that’s why I am part of this project. For me, it’s about awareness and it’s about getting everybody on board.

When I was breathing, I thought, so this is what my daughter couldn’t do. I don’t generally just sit there and breathe in, breathe out. I don’t. There were moments when I would think, oh my God, I can do this, but this is what she just couldn’t do. My God, how terrifying. For me, it’s quite shocking. You definitely made me reflect what it was like for her, not being able to breathe and how scary and terrifying in her eyes. Mum, yeah. It’s probably the worst thing ever, ever. I don’t think there’s going to be anything that’s worse than your child not being able to breathe.

Tafari McCalla, age 10, electric vehicle enthusiast

Sometimes when I see loads of cars let in pollution, I feel like somebody is going to have trouble breathing and it can really damage the environment. When I’m breathing in a very polluted place, my lungs are starting to become a little unhealthy and there’s something wrong going inside my chest. When they breathe in loads of polluted air, it’s kind of like they might feel a little tired, but it’s like they have to keep going. That’s why I breathe faster. If it was the countryside or the beach or anything like that, I might be more relaxed in my breaths. So I might take in breaths more slowly than quickly.

If a whole neighbourhood would talk to each other about making changes about the climate and that, then certain stuff wouldn’t happen, like all the bad stuff that’s happening today. When they discuss about it, it could be like all of them would kind of work together to save their neighbourhood. And then maybe another neighbourhood will see them, and then it would keep on spreading until it gets global.

Anjali Raman-Middleton, A-level student and founder of Choked Up

I was very much woken up when I heard about the death of Ella Kissi-Debrah, because I knew her family and she was a girl who was in my year at school. So to see how that was affecting people that I knew really made me alert to the dangers of air pollution. It can feel oppressive at times. It can feel dangerous because the air’s forcing itself on me and I can see it, I can see the exhaust fumes from the cars down my road. And it’s black and it’s terrible. And I can see it as smoke and it scares me, seeing that and knowing that that is what I’m breathing.

I love living in London. I would not really imagine myself living in the countryside. I think that the lifestyle of a city suits me far more. But there is always this kind of dread and this extra level of fear that I think comes from living in a city, just because of the air that I’m breathing. If I was to live somewhere else, for instance, where the air was perhaps cleaner, this area would probably be whiter. There would be less people from my kind of background there; it would be difficult for me to find the foods I eat. For people of colour in particular, this is a choice that we are forced to make. We are forced to choose between our communities and our culture and our health. And this isn’t a choice that anyone should have to make.

Alice Tate-Harte, campaigner and member of Mums for Lungs

When you live on a busy road, you are constantly aware that there’s traffic around you. You can hear it. There’s noise pollution. You can see it in the form of dust coming in your windowsill, and perhaps you can feel it when you go outside and you maybe breathe a bit shorter because you can smell there’s diesel in the air and the traffic is polluting. You have to shut your windows. So you’re sort of shutting out the outdoor environment more. And I think that sense of community has proven to be worse on traffic streets than it is on lower traffic streets.

I think the scary thing is finding out that it’s not just having an effect on the things that you can see. Like when you wipe your skin in the evening, you can see sort of black particles on your cotton-wool bud; you hear about kids with asthma and I know kids with asthma. And so you know about the breathing. But the fact that it can influence all aspects of your health in your body.

So small particles have been shown to get into your brain and possibly be a cause of dementia. It affects your circulatory system. So it can cause more heart attacks and strokes. It’s this thing where these tiny little particles are sort of invading and having an impact on all those areas of your body. And it can cross over the placenta and affect the babies before they’re born and stunt their lung growth. That’s just absolutely terrifying, isn’t it? You think that this damage is being done before kids have even been born. I think that’s the reason why we’ve got to reduce pollution as much as possible.

Heath Cole-Goodwin, son of the artist, who was drawn for Goodwin’s original Breathe artwork in 2012 when he was five years old

I do a lot of exercise because I train quite a few times a weekend, and I play football on a Sunday, and I play at my club, but our training ground is quite near to a busy road. So obviously, air pollution there. I don’t really know how to describe it, but you can sense it’s not the best air you’re breathing in, especially when you’re working at 80 per cent of your proper exercise capacity, and stuff, get your fitness up, and pushing yourself in training. I do feel weird that I have to breathe in air with pollution in it. And playing football, obviously, the oxygen you’re taking in, it’s like you need it, you’re gasping for air when you’ve done a 25-metre sprint or something. And yeah, you have to take in a lot of air. I mean, it feels strange that you have to take in bad air as well, but that’s just living in London, really. It would be nice to have perfectly clean air because then you just feel free to express yourself and exercise, and not worry about any bad air getting into your lungs.

Ted Burke, London Campaign Organiser at Friends of the Earth and lead organiser for Clean Air for Catford

I live on a quiet road, but it’s just next to the South Circular and a fairly sort of busy road coming off it, so every time you walk to the shop or every time you go anywhere, you’re faced with it. I’ve had asthma pretty much my whole life, I think, and I grew up in Catford in Lewisham. Lewisham has one of the highest rates of asthma in London. I can’t say for certain that living there or being born there meant that I would have asthma. I might have had it anyway, but the figures suggest that a lot more people have asthma there than they do in somewhere leafy and in touch with nature.

It’s a conscious choice to use a vehicle. Sometimes people have to, but where it is possible to take a different route – walking, cycling, taking public transport – we can all do that. We can all make that conscious decision, but also I suppose it’s our responsibility to be part of the push for change. So we can all call on our decision-makers, we can all show that we want an improvement to the air that we’re breathing and the quality of our environment. We don’t have to sit around feeling powerless. There is action to be taken, and get out there and take it.

The Air Above Us

“There is no doubt that the skies are closing in… but we hold in common the universal right to breathe.”

Achille Mbembe, 2020

In 1919 national borders were extended upwards to divide the atmosphere into national airspaces. These invisible boundaries govern the sky. But air moves freely around the world, regardless of land borders, circling the globe in as little as two weeks. Pollution produced in one country drifts on wind currents to others. Access to clean, breathable air requires international cooperation.

However, the transient nature of air can also be exploited. From the deployment of tear gas to the impacts of forest arson, toxic substances can be used to weaponise the atmosphere, turning the air into a site of exclusion and oppression.

Cloud Studies

Forensic Architecture, 2020

Forensic Architecture is a research agency whose work in the field of human rights combines architectural, spatial and forensic analysis and open-source investigative techniques. Findings from its investigations have been presented as evidence in national and international courts. This film explores clouds as meteorological, political, and epistemological entities. It reveals some of the ways in which they have been weaponised around the world, and explores how air can be mobilised to oppress, police and contaminate both people and their lived environments.

Forensic Architecture present the film alongside supporting material from their research.

Duration: 26 mins 9 secs

Rage Against the Dying: Campaign against Chemical and Biological Warfare

Elizabeth Sigmund, 1980

The British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS) was set up in 1968 by a group of prominent and radical scientists who advocated for the ethical implementation of scientific advances. The group was formed in response to the development of chemical and biological weapons, including the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. The first use of CS tear gas in Derry in 1969 led the group to campaign against techniques of repression used in Northern Ireland.

Wellcome Collection, SA/BSR

The New Technology of Repression: Lessons from Ireland

British Society for Social Responsibility in Science, 1974

Wellcome Collection, SA/BSR

Science for People, No. 52, Summer 1982; Science for People, No. 28, December 1974

Science for People was a magazine published by the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science which addressed key issues such as environmental regulation in the workplace and nuclear disarmament. The Society lobbied academic and scientific communities, often with direct interventions, leading calls for more scientific accountability with their motto: “Science is not neutral”.

Wellcome Collection, SA/BSR

Science for the People

Vol. 9. No. 2. March–April 1977

Science for the People was established in the United States around the same time as the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science. Arising from the anti-war movement, they tackled the militarisation of scientific research, environmental consequences of energy policy and inequalities in healthcare.

Wellcome Collection, SA/BSR

Consernus

September 1972

This pamphlet contains details of a joint community research project between members of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science and residents of Battersea in London. The ‘Battersea Smell’ was a pervasive stench that was described at the time as “like dead bodies”. Collating responses from residents, the smell was traced to Gartons, a nearby glucose factory.

Wellcome Collection, SA/BSR/E/3

Hazards Bulletin

May 1978, October 1979, March 1980, February 1983

Hazards Bulletin was published by members of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science to address risks in the workplace, including those posed by pollutants.

Wellcome Collection, SA/BSR

International Airspace

David Rickard, 2019

This work marks the 100-year anniversary of the signing of the Paris Convention in 1919. This was written in response to new aviation technologies, and extended land borders upwards to create nationalised air spaces. The glass vessel contains air collected from the 27 participating countries, accompanied by photographs taken where the air was captured. Produced by a team of international collaborators, the work reflects on the invisible borders that divide the sky and emphasises the global nature of the air we breathe.

Courtesy of the artist and Copperfield London. Glass vessel produced with Gayle Price and School of Chemistry, University of Leicester.

Acknowledgements

Curators: Emily Sargent & George Vasey

Exhibition Project Manager: Kate Davies

Registrar: Emma Smith

Production Manager: Christian Kingham

Project Assistant: Adam Rose

Audiovisual: Ricardo Barbosa, Jeremy Bryans, Ollie Isaac, Justin Margovan, Lewis Sellars, Antonina Stulova

Exhibition Technician: Lucy Woodhouse

Conservator: Jillian Gregory

3D Design: vPPR Architects

2D Design: Twelve

Construction: Realm Projects

We would like to thank all the artists, lenders, contributors and colleagues who have generously lent their works, expertise and ideas to the exhibition, and who have contributed to its planning and delivery. Where no credit line is shown, items have been purchased as material for the exhibition.