Ellie Jupp has written a review of ‘The Air We Breathe’ & ‘The Weather Station’, the current exhibition in The Window Gallery at City Arts. Ellie is a second year student at University of Nottingham, studying English. She is completing the Nottingham Advantage Award through a placement with City Arts.
Air quality and climate change are often discussed in scientific reports, but what happens when these urgent issues are translated into art? City Arts’ latest exhibition, The Air We Breathe, does just that – transforming pollution data into a striking visual and sensory experience.
Alongside it, The Weather Station takes a different but equally thought-provoking approach, exploring public attitudes toward climate change through an interactive installation.
This ambitious exhibition brings together a talented group of artists and local organisations, proving that art can be powerful in provoking social engagement. It is a collaboration between City Arts, the University of Nottingham’s City as Lab, Lakeside Arts and Broadway’s Near Now project with the help of Nottingham City Council. Through innovative installations, it challenges its audience to see, feel and interact with the unseen forces around us that shape our environment.
The Air We Breathe
At the heart of the exhibition The Air We Breathe is a stunning installation by Rebecca Smith of Urban Projections, and Charlotte Tupper. Both artist’s work transforms raw data on air pollution in Nottingham into immersive and visual experiences, making the invisible visible.
Artist Spotlight: Rebecca Smith
Rebecca is the artist behind Urban Projections, and is known for pushing the boundaries of digital art. Her work in The Air We Breathe is no exception. By harnessing air quality data, she has crafted a visual display that responds in real-time to pollution levels. She describes her artistic practice as an exploration of ‘how technology can offer ways of exploring the sometimes-complex relationship between people, place and environment’.
Through her work, Smith makes the unseen tangible. Audiences aren’t just told about air pollution, they experience it – moving through imagery, shifting light, and digital projections that reflect the very air that we breathe every day.
Artist Spotlight: Charlotte Tupper
Charlotte is multidisciplinary artist, also an associate of Nottingham Contemporary, and she brings a different yet complementary approach to this project. Specialising in textile art and participatory work, she has a history of engaging diverse communities in creative conversations about social and environmental issues.
Her contribution to The Air We Breathe focuses on the physical and historical presence of air pollution. She explores the ideas of relics and legacies, what we leave behind, both in terms of our environmental impact and artistic expression. With 14 years of experience delivering collaborative art projects, Charlotte’s work invites her audience to think about their own roles in shaping the future of our environment.
Seeing the Unseen
One of the most powerful aspects of The Air We Breathe is the revelation of what is usually invisible to us, despite being surrounded every day. The pollution levels of the air around us is a daily issue, yet it remains largely imperceptible until we begin to see rising asthma rates or scientific reports filled with negative statistics that spark a worry. But numbers and data don’t always resonate with people on an emotional level – art, however, has this unique ability to bridge this gap and transform such figures into tangible and emotionally relatable experiences.
Smith’s digital projections and dynamic displays turn the air itself into a canvas, forcing audiences to confront an issue that is collective, but also personal. Tupper’s textile work explores human aspects of pollution; how it lingers around us, our bodies, and our cultural memory.
By making the invisible visible, the works of Smith and Tupper don’t only inform us of climate change’s impact on our city, they also create an experience that lingers in our minds long after viewing the exhibition. They have a powerful message that is sent and delivered successfully.
They remind us that air pollution is not just an abstract problem that doesn’t regard us – it’s in the spaces we live in, the streets we walk, and quite literally – in the air we breathe.
The Weather Station
While The Air We Breathe translates pollution into data-driven art, The Weather Station shifts the focus to public perception. This project, created by the artist duo The Tuning Group, turns local opinions on climate change into a public art experience.
Artist Spotlight: The Tuning Group
The Tuning Group, founded by Near Now Studio members Mo Langmuir and Samuel Collins is known for exploring collective social experiences through art. Near Now Studio collaborates with individuals and companies to explore the role of technology in everyday life, fostering creative projects. The studio offers a creative community, and members can access creative spaces for co-working, to participate in events to test ideas, develop their skills, share their work, and explore new collaborations. Through events, workshops, and exhibitions, Near Now provides a platform for artists that creates a sense of community. Langmuir and Collins’ work challenges Western perspectives on human and non-human relationships, curating new ways to think about climate, shared space and landscape.
For The Weather Station, they mapped climate-related data from Hello Nottingham’s research into a landscape, showing different degrees of warming through interactive elements. The result is a series of site-specific installations that invite audiences to engage in playful but serious conversations about climate change, connecting abstract data to the everyday spaces people inhabit.
The Bigger Picture: Nottingham’s Climate Commitments
This exhibition is part of a much larger conversation happening across all of Nottingham. In 2019, Nottingham City Council declared a climate and ecological emergency, with a very ambitious goal of becoming the UK’s first carbon-neutral city by the year 2028.
The University of Nottingham is also making their own strides, aiming to reduce their emissions by 63% by 2030, with a net-zero goal set for 2040 and absolute zero by 2050.
The Nottingham Climate Assembly and Nottinghamshire County Council are actively working to involve residents in shaping these changes. Initiatives such as the Nottinghamshire Plan highlight efforts to improve air quality, promote greener travel, reduce waste, and protect biodiversity.
Final Thoughts: The Power of Art in Environmental Activism
By turning data into display, The Air We Breathe, and The Weather Station prove that art has a crucial role to play in environmental activism. They don’t just inform, they engage, provoke, and inspire action to be taken.
In Nottingham, the conversation on climate change isn’t just happening in government meetings or science reports, it’s happening in galleries, on city streets, and through the work of artists like Smith, Tupper, and The Tuning Group.