The process can be found below.
NYC Subway Pollution Ink
Chemicals of Mutual Concern
Research focus: pollution-derived materials, environmental research, material experimentation
NYC Subway Pollution Ink was developed during my research assistantship with Prof. Heather Davis at Eugene Lang College as part of Chemicals of Mutual Concern, a research project investigating pollution in the Great Lakes and New York City through material experimentation.
I independently researched the history and impacts of regional pollution and developed a pollution-based ink using dust and soot collected from New York City subway stations over a three-month period.
Through iterative material experimentation, I refined the ink and used it to hand-print index cards for public exhibition. The accompanying texts, authored by Prof. Heather Davis and Prof. Kirsty Robertson, contextualized the environmental and social impacts of pollution. By transforming accumulated subway particulates into a printing material, the project made an otherwise largely invisible form of urban pollution materially perceptible.
Selected Exhibitions and Features
Plastic Heart: Surface All the Way Through, Art Museum at the University of Toronto
Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris
Momus, “An Aesthetic of Enough”
Materials Map
8 prints in one set of the index cards
8 prints in one set of the index cards