Gasping For Air-a free exhibition in Rainham tackling air pollution.

Havering Changing and Climate activist Ruth Kettle-Frisby are introducing ‘Grasping For Air’-an exhibition looking at the impact of air pollution.

Gasping for Air, by artist Jo Pearl, is a free exhibition that is sparking a conversation about air pollution. The exhibition will run from the 27th October-24th November on the top floor of Royals, Rainham, having been made possible by Havering Changing’s ‘Creative Community Support’ programme and commissioned by Rainham Change Makers steering group of local residents and community members.
With the topic of air pollution being ever more present in the news, we invite you to experience this timely exhibit for yourself, to explore this topic in a unique way, through the highly expressive medium of art.
Gasping for Air speaks with a certain familiarity to anyone who has experienced the health impacts of breathing in polluted air. It makes the invisible visible, by touching upon the concerns we often hold about air pollution, fuelling the imagination, and bringing forward gentle conversations from individual lived perspectives.
The work features a beautiful stop-frame animated clay sculpture of a woman, combined with ceramic kiln-firing. It provides a snapshot of respiratory struggle, making our unconscious process of breathing conscious, as the sculpture exhibits an uneasy pattern of breathing. It is a genuine expression of the need to breathe clean air and communicates deep ideas surrounding human health, by showing how it might actually look, sound and feel like to struggle to catch each and every breath. These representations, however, are supported by a hopeful narrative about clean air. It explores the relationship between ourselves and our natural environment, questioning cultural habits that contribute towards air pollution.
I first came across Jo’s work representing Mums for Lungs at a clean air event at City Hall called Toxic Air and Inequalities: A Screening and Conversation in the Spring. As I immersed myself in Jo’s art, I was so impressed that I thought to myself ‘if only more people could see this in Havering!’. After a few days of indecision, I went out on a limb and contacted Jo directly. This resulted in a conversation: to my delight, she said she’d love to come to us and exhibit her art!
My hope is that this exhibition will be a positive and inclusive space for creative conversations about air pollution. This feels especially urgent here in Rainham: the location of a series of spikes in PM2.5 pollution this summer, which peaked at 279.1 tiny particulates in August. To give a comparison, the highest reading at the Blackwall Tunnel during the same period was 68.41 particulates, putting Rainham’s air pollution spikes four times higher than those in a traffic congested tunnel.
Gasping for Air’s claymation film is a rollercoaster, but the storm does subside, and participants of the clay-based workshop on Friday 27th Oct will no doubt have a lot of fun! We will share in co-making a clayscape, modelling and playing around with ideas about the complex problem of air pollution, sharing observations, feelings, and memories of clean air.
Tickets for the opening night are completely free, so click on the red ‘Reserve a spot’ button while you can! Everyone is welcome, the workshop is suitable for all ages from 3-103. All children must be accompanied by an adult.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gasping-for-air-opening-night-workshop- tickets-737076996137? aff=erelexpmlt#:~:text=Gasping%20for%20Air%20has%20been,Creative%20People%20and %20Places%20programme.

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