The Guardian on Breathe:Lahore

On Tuesday 29th October 2024, the Guardian published an article on Dryden Goodwin’s Breathe:Lahore:

“On Monday, Lahore took the world lead on several measures of poor air quality. According to Swiss-based IQAir, which partners with the UN and other agencies to measure pollution, the air quality index was 299 – just two points short of hazardous, followed by Delhi scoring 207. An AQI of 151 to 200 is classified as “unhealthy”, 201 to 300 “very unhealthy” and more than 300 as “hazardous”.

Yet when British artist Dryden Goodwin was looking for an activist fighting for clean air in the city to draw as part of a showcase for this month’s 2024 Lahore Biennale 03, he struggled to find a volunteer.

Reluctantly, the founder of the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative (پاکی), Abid Omar, agreed to sit for the project himself, leading to more than 230 pencil sketches of Pakistan’s leading clean air campaigner now being on display across the smog-choked city.

Omar says: ‘I was asked to find a volunteer for an air pollution campaign in Lahore – I couldn’t find anyone’.”

Written by Zofeen T Ebrahim, Karachi-based journalist.

Breathe:Lahore is produced by Invisible Dust and this is the international debut of Dryden’s project Breathe.

This project was made possible by the support of Lahore Biennale Foundation, UCL and Pakistan Air Quality Initiative.