As science begins to intersect with art, music and now literature, an unusual session at the recently-concluded Jaipur Litfest featured thr...
As science begins to intersect with art, music and now literature, an unusual session at the recently-concluded Jaipur Litfest featured three scientists discussing air pollution through the filter of a grief memoir written as a personalised narrative about the human cost of air pollution. It demonstrated yet again how toxic air is seeping not only into our bodies but also our minds.
Such intersections are not new – and that is the good news.
Art installations have already acknowledged the scourge of air pollution. In 2016, Shahid Parvez’s colourful three-dimensional artwork “Do I Need to Say Anything” at the India Art Fair had caught my attention as had Spanish artist Lucas Munoz’s arresting installation at the then newly-restored Bikaner House the same year.
#Art @airdelhi Discover the "Delhi lung" at @icnuevadelhi (Main Entrance) created by Lucas Muñoz @DelhiAirOrg pic.twitter.com/2s7PnuuPeg
— Instituto Cervantes New Delhi (@ICNuevaDelhi) March 15, 2016
There have been several others, though none as stark as Munoz’s dynamic installation, a simple white muslin cloth wrapped around a bamboo frame with 21 fans sucking Delhi’s air and blowing it through the cloth, capturing the city’s particulate matter in its warp and weft, its weave turning grey, then black over a period of 30 days.
The installation, artfully mimicking what the city’s air does to our...
