Vital Signs Exhibition: Context & Learnings
“I think the idea that the environment is not just something around you, but has got to be treated as probably a friend, or maybe a living being, that sort of put things a little bit more into perspective, because it’s a lot harder to desecrate something that is actually a living being.”
- Exhibition attendee
Context
Centric Lab were invited to be part of a special exhibition at the Science Gallery London called VITAL SIGNS: Another World is Possible.
The exhibition brought together artists, designers and researchers to explore how the health of the natural world - from our waterways to our atmosphere and the ocean floor - is intimately connected to our own health and wellbeing.
Centric Lab exhibited an interactive, data-supported, piece of work related the Air is Kin project. A digital touchscreen allowed visitors to explore 6 locations in England and through headphones hear first-person narration accounts of activists, doctors, and campaigners working in those locations. The digital screen hosted geographic maps from the six locations showing analysis results from the Urban Sacrifice Zones work. This work showed which MSOA region had a high intersection between deprivation and sites of industrial air pollution. Data was used from the English government’s own Index of Multiple Deprivation and the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory. Through data, first person accounts, and displayed information visitors could learn more about the systemic forces that result in some areas being more polluted than others and what changemakers are trying to do about it.
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Carrying momentum from previous conversation, on Jan 2024, in an email to Jen Wong, Head of Programming at Science Gallery London, Araceli from the Centric Lab team proposed a collaboration between Centric and SGL with the following:
“The purpose would be to use this opportunity to disseminate the work within the Declaration for Air and increase awareness of how the air that we breathe is not actually air anymore. Therefore our campaigning for clean air, should [be] asking for Air to be healed and [Being-ness] restored.
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A microbiological and ecological understanding of air
The introduction to "sacrifice zones"
Restoring our relationship with Air and Breath
Assimilative Capacity and how that creates "right to pollute policies"
The links between Air and Planetary Health
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We could ask Thabo Mkwananzi, who was the poet and artist that we used to write the Declaration to speak on the relationship between the AIr, Breath, and Planetary Health
We could also create [an] "Air as Kin" mini-programme that can be a combination of children workshops, lectures, and Q+A.
We can do an exhibit [with] the data visualisations for "sacrifice zones" that are also narrativised with lived experience stories.
Finally, there is an opportunity to print out the Declaration and have it for people to take”
This proposition was to carry on from the momentum of the Declaration for Air. Science Gallery London were developing the Vital Signs (VITAL SIGNS: another world is possible, new exhibition and events from 13 November 2024 — Science Gallery London) exhibition and the fit made sense with the goals of what Araceli proposed.
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Science Gallery London: Science Gallery London
“Science Gallery London is a place to grow new ideas across art, science and health. A part of King’s College London, we’re the university’s flagship public gallery situated on King’s Guy’s Campus next to London Bridge station.
As a university-based gallery, we try to spark new ways of thinking about some of the most complex contemporary challenges we face. The work we share here emerges from dialogue and collaborations between communities of artists, academics, students, young people, activists, local organisations and more.
The Gallery brings together a breadth of perspectives to shape and share a programme of exhibitions, residencies, workshops, open discussions, festivals, performances and live research.
Entry to all of our exhibitions and events is free. Our doors are open for you to explore”
As mentioned, this collaboration was a pilot in applying our work in a cultural worker setting that is accessible to the general public as opposed to the majority of our work which is online in reports or through learnings journeys.
10PM Studio: 10PM
10PM is a design and technology studio based in London founded by Rob Prouse and Tom Merrell.
We design and build brand identities, websites, digital interfaces, e-commerce and online platforms for clients in the cultural and creative sector.”
SGL contracted 10PM to create the proposed data visualisation.
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Science Gallery London provided a stipend fee to cover some costs whilst the majority of the Air is Kin work is funded by Guy’s & St. Thomas’s Foundation through Impact on Urban Health.
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Declaration for Air: A Declaration for Air — CENTRIC LAB
One of the biggest drivers of engaging with this work was to continue the momentum of the Declaration for Air, the result from a session on 11th October 2023, where 14 people ranging from the fields of medicine, policy, law, abolition, science, data science, economics, and art gathered to declare our right to access AIR.
Air is Kin: Air is Kin — CENTRIC LAB
The mission of the [Air is Kin] project is to move towards the abolition of “Right to Pollute” policies and to facilitate healing pathways for communities impacted by air pollution. This project and study are meant to create a starting point for the abolition of the right to pollute policies, which are having a continual devastating effect on both planetary and human health.
OUTPUTS
Multimedia Installation
Friday Late Event
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Centric Lab exhibited an interactive, data-supported, piece of work related to the Air is Kin project. A digital touchscreen allowed visitors to explore 6 locations and 6 first-person audio witness statements from advocates, doctors, practitioners, and campaigners in England. The digital screen hosted geographic maps from the six locations showing analysis results from the Urban Sacrifice Zones work.
This work showed which Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA) region had a high intersection between deprivation and sites of industrial air pollution. We used MSOAs because they are a geographic size close to the scale of a ward but closer to how one might associate with their area. Data was used from the English government’s own Index of Multiple Deprivation and the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory. Through data, first person accounts, and displayed information visitors could learn more about the systemic forces that result in some areas being more polluted than others and what changemakers are trying to do about it.
The first-person witness statements were from:
Angela Fonso, Clean Air for Southall & Hayes.
Nabil Al-Kinani, Brent based built-environment professional and strategist.
Stuart Bennett, Merseyside based campaigner for Save Rimrose Valley.
Dr. Emily Parker, Newcastle based GP.
Love Ssega, South London campaigner, musician, producer and artist.
The installation also featured a poem by Thabo Mkwananzi [pictured in the right of the photo above].
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SGL hosted a variety of events around the Vitals Signs exhibition over the course of the November to May timeframe. The March Lates included a viewing of Black Corporeal (Breathing by Numbers) by Julianknxx followed by a discussion and Q&A with Julianknxx, Araceli Camargo and Professor Ioannis Bakolis, chaired by Karin Woodley.
Breathing by Numbers is anchored by the voice of Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, who traces her journey to officially acknowledge air pollution as a cause of death of her 9-year-old daughter, Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah. This moving film explores the stark realities of environmental poverty as experienced by Black and working-class people in London, while honouring a culture of resilience and perseverance.
Reflections on event
The crowd had a mix of lived experience, health practitioners, planning, students, and general locals. There was first some discussion involving themes from the video. There were some key themes and quotes from what Julian said that felt impactful:
What does it look like to be alive today?
What does it look like in the future?
“If you aren’t living your imagination, you're in someone else’s.”
Imagination has structure.
“The joy comes after the work.”
Find your medium for carrying big ideas, then listen.
[Art as a] language for things you can’t explain.
The questions from the Q&A mostly covered aspects of engaging with the realities of structural pollution and people’s role in change and justice in addition to questions to Julian regarding the artistic directions of the video.
From the event as well as talking to Julian and Araceli afterwards, there is definitely space needed for someone like Julian who is arguably a culture and cultural worker in different cases to propose these sorts of questions and provocations in the health and environmental justice space, particularly in an accessible space to the public.
FEEDBACK FROM VISITORS
“Oh, the part about air, I really liked the part where they were following one group and they were talking about how air is a part of us and how we are supposed to have a symbiotic relationship with that, like air is life, I really liked that one.”
“Yes, if the air is sick, then we are sick, and I think that connects to a lot of things that are happening. I feel like it’s out of sight, out of mind, but I feel like a lot of people don’t want to recognise the changes that are happening. They think like “oh, landfill, it’s just a part of us”, or the things that we find in the ocean. At the end of the day, if the earth is dying, and we are made of the earth, then at the end of the day we are going to end up dying. So I think that was really interesting to see in a more expressive way vs. just like media.”
“I think the idea that the environment is not just something around you, but has got to be treated as probably a friend, or maybe a living being, that sort of put things a little bit more into perspective, because it’s a lot harder to desecrate something that is actually a living being.”
Charlotte Russell worked with a PhD student Megan Lawrence on some audience evaluation in Vital Signs as part of some psychology research around memory and recall. They asked people to recall aspects of the exhibition at different time points following a visit. The following are quotes or summaries of quotes from the data shared with SGL:
Q - (what was most memorable?):
Several respondents found the visualisations and stories, particularly about Angela Fonso and the Southall campaign, memorable and relatable to their own life.
Another respondent found the term urban sacrifice zones to be a new term that made a lot of sense once introduced.
Q - From research participants – (Has anything stayed with you?):
“The part of the exhibition about the air pollution in Southall has stayed with me as I remember quite well how serious the lady on the video we watched (Angela) was about the danger it was putting her child in.”
Upon further questioning on what stayed with people, there were a few key insights:
Urban sacrifice zones are not common terminology, but people really find the concept relatable, especially when the data relates to their area and the descriptions reflect their upbringing. The term especially appealed to people who were interested in social justice as a cause.
Angela Fonso’s story with Southall impacted people because it drew their attention to relatable lived experiences.
The “personification” of Air stayed with some people. Even though we aren’t actually trying to make Air into a citizen or person, we are encouraging people to respect the relationship between people and Air.
REFLECTIONS
These are just a few reflections in the form of provocations that came from having completed this work:
Art exhibitions can be soft pathways to change long-standing narratives, establish new lores, which in turn can change societal norms.
Within the clean air movement, there is a rightful tendency to go straight to policy change. However, laws and policies are heavily influenced by societally accepted lore. This exhibition allows us to gauge how people respond and enact new lores.
How can cultural workers (like gallery curators, universities) leverage their resources as being some part of infrastructure to complement researchers and culture workers in supporting communities with health reparations?
How can installations like the Air is Kin/Vital Signs be used as tools in how communities approach health reparations?
What mechanisms need to be in place to encourage and enable communities interested in health reparations to propose and lead the work in these spaces?