Sabin, Lucy;
(2024)
Aerography: Air quality and creative practice.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Aerography reimagines the concept of air quality beyond numerical thresholds, contributing to recent research on air and atmospheres across the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Air quality normally refers to quantitative measures of air pollution calibrated against local, regional, and international standards. Limit values have become central to monitoring and regulation practices, but they cannot fully account for the complex and uneven burden of toxicity that emerges and accumulates through intimate relations of bodies and atmospheres. The aim of Aerography is to problematise fixed definitions of air quality and to propose ways of generating relational, situated, and polyvocal accounts via participatory arts, exhibition design, art-science collaboration, and interdisciplinary dialogue. “Creative translation” establishes an epistemological orientation for the creative practice as research and is followed by three case studies. “Breathing worlds” proceeds to explore media artworks in contexts of COVID-19 and urban air pollution in the UK, fomenting a discussion on intersectional politics, antiracist feminisms, and the right to breathable air. “Re-sensing toxicity” engages with exhibition design to deepen the critical reflection on intersectional exposures, with a focus on sprayed pesticides and exploitative labour conditions in Andalusia. Finally, “Drifting with dust” investigates transcontinental, postcolonial experiences of air quality with a dialogue between climatology and critical theory that speculatively “follows” Saharan dust across disciplines and continents. In sum, the research underscores the urgent need for approaches to air quality that account for systemic inequities as well as possibilities to imagine and breathe more hopeful futures into being.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Aerography: Air quality and creative practice |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| Keywords: | aerography, air art, air quality, art-research, art-science, atmosphere, breathability, breathing worlds, breathlessness, breathworks, chemical exposure, creative geography, creative translation, re-sensing, saharan dust, toxic art, weathering |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Geography |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10198487 |
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