The air we breathe 2019

Sarah Strachan
4 years ago

Wooden cabinet, clear acrylic boxes, found objects 100 x 200 x 80 cm

This temporary work is one element of an ongoing social art project, The air we breathe.  It brings together a collection of found objects in acrylic boxes, exchanged by post with  children and their families around the world.  The contents of the boxes record a generation’s diverse personal experiences of air quality in their local environment, displayed in an indexical cabinet borrowed from its custodian at Cambridge School of Art.

Whilst the museum-like cabinet of curiosities makes reference to science’s endeavours to measure and categorise our current geological age - the Anthropocene - the relational nature of the project reflects on the role of perceptions, feelings and emotions in our recognition of, and response to, our current predicament as a species.

Air pollution and its impact on human health are becoming increasingly recognised – with the WHO conference in 2018 marking the first-ever global event to focus on both. In the context of ‘shifting baseline syndrome’, I’m interested in how the next generation’s childhood experience of their environment might affect their ecological thinking and awareness.

Exhibited as part of the Sustainability Art Prize 2019