USA – Artist Michael Pinsky is giving people a taste of the toxic air pollution impacting 9 in 10 of us in cities worldwide. In his work, Pollution Pods, Michael has recreated the ‘air quality, smell and temperature’ of global cities inside geodesic domes.
Now the World Health Organization (WHO) has asked the artist to install them at the UN Building in New York for the upcoming Climate Action Summit on 23 September. It will show people, however briefly, what citizens living in London, Beijing, São Paulo, New Delhi and Tautra experience everyday. The goal is clear: offer a taste of reality to inspire action.
“In the Pollution Pods, I have tried to distil the whole bodily sense of being in each place. For instance, being in São Paulo seems like a sanctuary compared to New Delhi, until your eyes start to water from the sensation of ethanol, whilst Tautra is unlike any air you’ll have ever breathed before, it is so pure,” said Pinsky.
First launched at the Starmus Festival in Norway last summer, more than 20,000 have experienced the pods in cities including Vancouver, London and Geneva. The pods will also be outside the European Parliament in Brussels this October.
