Smogware: Delhi
2024 | Porcelain, Delhi smog dust
The Smogware project uses locally harvested smog dust to create ceramics that represents air pollution of each city. Using smog dust as part of the glaze for tableware – an integral part of everyday life – LAB Air engages audiences through a visual demonstration of the impacts of air quality.
Inscriptions on a selection of tableware tell how long citizens inhale the amount of dust that is used to stain the glaze of that particular item; LDN 45 stands for 45 years of breathing in London, RTM 10 for 10 years in Rotterdam.
For Smogware: Delhi, thali sets and kulhads were developed in collaboration with local ceramists Arti Paliwal and Aniruddh Sagar in recycled clay by Earth Tatva. Workshops were conducted in New Delhi to collect smog dust later used as glaze, representing inhaled amounts over the period of years mentioned in the code.
In collaboration with Cascoland, lunch and chai are served in activation events engaging the audience in conversations related to air pollution and sustainable food production and consumption.
IRIS DE KIEVITH co-founded design and research collective Lab AIR in Rotterdam. With a focus on raising awareness and understanding of the air we breathe as a starting point, Lab AIR is widening the scope to a healthy and inclusive future. The power of imagination is explored in collaborations, for example with Cascoland.
FIONA DE BELL is co-founder of Cascoland, an international network of designers, visual artists, performers and academics based in Amsterdam. Projects are executed with multi-disciplinary teams of creatives, and are aimed at the development of an ecological and social sustainable society, and conceived as tools to be used by participants and diverse audiences rather than artworks to be exhibited. Their work promotes a sustainable use of spaces, skills and resources, empowerment of communities and implementation of innovative social & low-tech solutions addressing local needs.
Together they create art as a tool to make change happen.
