EXHIBITION//2020

We are pollutants. Since the Industrial Revolution, countless synthetic substances have started floating, flowing, melting, infecting, disrupting or dwelling within and around us. These pollutants did not exist before and will not now disappear. Quite the opposite. There is a pressing need to map these pollutants in order to understand the roles of modernity and urbanisation in disseminating them across the Earth. Even if ‘recycling’ processes are meant to make ‘dirty’ matter ‘clean,’ most of these chemical compounds are indestructible and will continue to circulate across rivers, soil, groundwater, air, cities, buildings, factories and human and non-human matter. To name but a few of these compounds: carbon dioxide, nitrogen monoxide, arsenic, petroleum, glass fibres, PCBs, DDTs, asbestos, cement, hormones, food colourings, flame retardants, antioxidants and microplastics.