POLLUTION PODS REVEAL ALL

Image courtesy of Michael Pinsky

Each of the five geodesic domes connected has their own cocktail of fumes, as does each of our cities. Carbon dioxide, nitric dioxide and harmful chemicals are the invisible killers that blanket our skyscrapers and lungs, but here in this safe simulation by Michael Pinsky, there’s none of that. No romantic architecture. No people to watch or platforms to run to — only the twisted smell and harmful haze city-dwellers have grown accustomed to.

Image courtesy of Michael Pinsky

The air quality of London, Beijing, New Delhi, Sao Paulo, and Tautra island in Norway is recreated in each dome. Carefully mixed recipes cooked-up by climate researchers and scent specialists emulate the ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide of each location.

Image courtesy of Marla Aufmuth

Michael Pinsky’s installation was installed for the TED conference at the Vancouver convention centre, inviting guests to let their nose take them around the world in a trip of olfactory vertigo. Starting within the fresh, clean island of Tautra, visitors passed through increasingly polluted, hot and humid cells. 

Image courtesy of Marla Aufmuth

The pods are safe to breathe and walk around in, unlike cities like Delhi, where over half of all children suffer from stunted lung development. Around the world, particularly in the east, where factories satisfy capitalist orders from the west, the release of toxic gases increase the rate of global warming and have a direct effect on our present-day health. 

Citizens of China and India are poisoned by the air. We know this on paper, but beautiful photos paint a much different picture of those places, which is why Pinsky created the space where the haze and smell of poisoned air is not obscured by beautiful views and colours.

Via designboom