Can smog be used as art? How the Nadir of world’s most polluted cities is inspiring creativity!

Art is what you make of it. It’s another’s epitome of imagination but an indication of your appreciation. There’s hardly a mutual reciprocation in this offbeat relationship. Just pure bewilderment and on other occasions, perplexing of its connoisseurs. The funny thing, about art is, it can do both- tinker your senses and provide food for thought, at the same time, basking in glory of it’s creator’s talent.

So recently when the usual buzz around London’s Somerset house found to it’s utter surprise a dusty envelope of air, there was more excitement than usual on most other days. And lest it be forgotten that it had to do something with suspended air particles. In case you’ve already begun scratching the head, here’s what panned out.

Smog, especially in the earning morning in contemporary chaos of burgeoning world cities is a prelude to the duty layering of pollution we end up interacting with. Is it not? The very first step we take before we hit the car is a cursory glance through suspended dirt particles. Then whether it is the cosmopolitan gravitas in a London or New York or the fashionable hubris about Paris or the commercial pomp of Shanghai or Delhi, smog and smog leading to pollution is a common certainty of our times.

But in the realm of art, with the artist generating ideas with a minor twinge or swivel using a paintbrush, things are rather creative. Much to the delight and surprise of the Londoners, when they found a Pollution pod’s art installation- there was interaction with a residue of contemporary living culture, through the lens of an art that was both telling of our problems and unprecedented in its conception. There was this uncanny rarity that one saw in the Pollution pod art installation- a creation of famous installation art expert- Michael Pinsky. Art when it entered the realm of living spaces, reminded one and all that even as pollution or smog may differ from different countries, it does exist and can be ‘accessed’ through the funnel of creativity.

And that- if it could be said- is the real triumph of art. When you interact with it instead of just absorbing its enigmatic beauty from some distance. Inside what were five linked domes, one could actually get to breathe the polluted atmospheres of London, New York, Shanghai, New Delhi and, Sao Paulo- thus covering the divergent geographies of the world. The real purpose of the climatically controlled air pods, was to generate pollute atmospheres of different pivots of the world actually circulating a non-toxic essence of air that was specifically scented to give those present a sense of idea to experience what pervades the different time zones of the world. Real, authentic and moving, Michael Pinsky’s installation was something in a league of it’s own and something with a rare ‘air’ to it, if it could be said.

Different cities have different chemical fumes and these emote the toxicity that surrounds every city, whether it’s a Shanghai, Delhi or Sao Paulo. And that said, nothing ever disputes or counters the toxic attraction to art. In this case, it could be said that the Somerset House got something from the throes of the ‘real.’