Airbrushed existence

Bad air is an equaliser, uncontained by physical borders and social boundaries, but dialogues around air pollution don't extend to everybody. They have blind spots

The compulsory art class back in school had a certain consistency about it. The art teacher’s “paint a landscape” instruction would trigger what could be called photocopied creativity: Brown peaks, sometimes sharp, sometimes mound-like, with a dash of white atop for snow; an undulating green terrain; a little cottage with a door in the middle, windows by the side and a tree nearby; a duck pond in front of the cottage or else a stream running from the mountains; a couple of birds; a cheerful sun; and blue skies pinned with white, cotton-like clouds — the fair-weather cumulus.

The lack of imagination this idyllic scene reflected would later start to worry art teachers in new-age schools that pride themselves on encouraging children to forge their individual identities and find their own expression.

Cloned creativity aside, you could tell that if you stepped into one of those paintings and took a deep breath, the air that would fill your lungs would be cool and sweet — not the kind we breathe in cities like Delhi.

Last month, Delhi’s air quality, which is the worst among the world’s capital cities, was in focus, yet again, in the form of an unusual public art project. Called “Hawa Mein Baat” (conversation in the air), it had over 40 women from various sectors of Delhi’s informal economy creating artworks that highlighted their experiences of air pollution. The exhibition was put up at Nand Nagri, an area near the Uttar Pradesh border in the northeastern part of Delhi, which is home to a large resettlement colony.

Bad air is an equaliser. Uncontained by physical borders and social boundaries, it impacts everybody. However, dialogues and affirmative actions around air pollution don’t extend to everybody. They have blind spots. These women represented one such blind spot.

Working with textile, waste material and knick-knacks, they conveyed their experiences and dreams. A tapestry, for instance, depicted a park scene, with trees, people and clean skies, much like those picturesque art-class landscapes. Titled “Mehengi Hawa” (expensive air), it expressed the desire for clean air that was out of reach. Jars of dirty water spoke of what happens to clothes if left outside on a balcony for a few days in the areas where the women live.

An India-focused study published in the Scientific Reports journal last year established that socially disadvantaged populations are disproportionately exposed to air pollution. Initiatives such as Clean Air Fund, which are working to tackle air pollution across geographies, also emphasise that low-income communities are often least responsible for air pollution but are most exposed to it.

Academia and civil society have been trying to draw attention to or address this largely invisible villain. The governments, not so much. In three to four months from now, as temperatures begin to cool and air pollution becomes visible, they will get into action mode again to tackle a crisis that demands year-round attention.

A section of Delhi will pull out air purifiers; the ones who have the luxury of time and means will head to cleaner destinations for those visibly problematic months; and folks such as the women who were part of “Hawa Mein Baat” will likely go on as usual, breathing in air that would then be many times more toxic.

The creative world has for long had a close relationship with the environment. A fascinating research published by the National Academy of Sciences last year studied some 100 artworks by Joseph Turner and Claude Monet to find that their paintings depicted trends in 19th century air pollution. Turner, an English Romantic painter, lived from 1775 to 1851, his lifespan coinciding with the First Industrial Revolution. And Monet, the French artist often identified as the Father of Impressionism, lived from 1840 to 1926 — the period of the Second Industrial Revolution.

Industrialisation, the researchers found, “altered the environmental context in which Turner and Monet painted”... and their paintings captured “changes in the optical environment associated with increasingly polluted atmospheres during the Industrial Revolution”, thereby moving towards hazier contours.

Speaking of haze, a colleague pointed out how even films set in big Indian cities always appear to lack the visual sharpness, that smog-free washed look one finds in movies set in the Western world. They do indeed.