Preston commuters invited to take part in local artist’s study

25 January 2016

Project will look at air quality in the city

Does your daily journey involve travel within Preston? Local artist Rebecca Chesney is looking for volunteers to take part in her University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) commissioned project Particulate Matters, designed to explore air quality in relation to daily routines and how it affects human health and the environment.

What would happen if we could suddenly see the air we breathe? How would we choose to travel, plan our cities and conduct our daily lives if pollution from traffic and industry was visible in our skies? How would we respond if we could see the effects of particulate matter on our hair, skin, lungs, heart and circulatory system? Would we choose to maintain the status quo or radically alter our habits?

Particulate Matters is an artistic research project, designed by Rebecca which will employ the latest innovation in air quality monitoring to record, measure and analyse the exposure to air pollution of individual members of the public. She is looking to accompany a number of local people on their daily journeys through their areas of the city. These may be, for example, commutes to work, school runs, shopping expeditions, dog walks, or visits to friends or relatives; they may take place on foot, in cars, on bikes or public transport. The journeys may be long or short and may involve more than one place in the case of, for instance, street cleaners, couriers or school crossing patrol officers.

Rebecca’s work takes the form of installations, interventions, drawings, maps and walks, underpinned by research into the protection of the environment. Her previous work includes a two-acre meadow installation in Everton Park, Liverpool to support the local bee populations and study of the relationship between humans and leopards of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai.

Volunteers must be available on one of the following dates in February:
11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24 and 25.

To register interest to take part please email info@incertainplaces.org. Participants will be contacted directly. Particulate Matters is commissioned by UCLan’s In Certain Places.