SciArt Magazine - All Issues | Page 38

Amongst London’s abundant sciart repertoire, Invisible Dust’s motives remain clear and their actions progressive, as the projects collected by the organization are ever changing in both content and form. The malleability of the Invisible Dust program is adapted to respond to emerging environmental issues, rather than proven, accepted, and often outdated principles. Founded in 2009 by Alice Sharp, the relatively young organization has become the adoptive guardian of many projects and artists who otherwise would not have support due to their unconventional disciplinary classifications. Sharp, a practicing curator since 1997, has a keen understanding of the magnitude of public artworks in regards to social engagement. Sharp’s confidence shows—she is not shy of pushing boundaries of art and new media, urging the discipline out of its conventional boundaries towards an amalgamation of social, scientific, and researchbased practice. Particularly relevant to London’s recent air quality issues, documented and followed by the organization’s aforementioned online monitor, Invisible Dust’s biggest project to date addressed issues of air pollution, winning Lord Mayor of London’s U.K. Sustainable City Award presented for “outstanding contributions to en- hancing air quality” in 2011. The project, “Invisible Breath,” included works by artists Dryden Goodwin, Faisal Abdu’Allah, and HeHe, and wascomplemented by educational events for a target audience of families, schools, and young people. For this series, art-based research association HeHe recreated the tragedy of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill in miniature. A sound, video, and mildly pyrotechnic sculpture installation, Is there a horizon in the deep water, was shown at the Cambridge Science Festival. This work was followed by Faisal Abdu’Allah’s Double Pendulum, a video piece documenting the respiratory lives of elite athletes and the implications of air pollution on these athletes’ health. The film was screened at a pertinent time, a year before the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, at an even more pertinent location just outside the London Olympic Stadium. Artist Dryden Goodwin’s piece Breathe completed the “Invisible Breath” series. Goodwin’s work evolved from pencil drawings of a young boy breathing, into an animation, further spawning an interactive map of London’s air pollution and a discussion about air quality concerns at the U.K. Parliament’s House of Commons. Breathe by Dryden Goodwin (2012). Image courtesy the artist. 38 SciArt in America June 2014