Breathe:Lahore, Dryden Goodwin

Breathe:Lahore, Dryden Goodwin. Artwork on the Mall Road, Lahore. Image L. Wood for Invisible Dust, 2024

Breathe comes to the Lahore Biennale to raise awareness of air pollution in the world’s most polluted city

For the Lahore Biennale 03 – ‘Of Mountains and Seas’ curated by John Tain (5th Oct – 8th Nov 2024) the latest iteration of Dryden Goodwin’s acclaimed artwork, Breathe, was unveiled across Lahore, Pakistan. Appearing at iconic sites across the city, including Bradlaugh Hall, Mall Road and over 1,000 digital billboards across the city Breathe:Lahore highlights the public health crisis caused by declining air quality in the city.

Breathe:Lahore marks the project’s international city debut, with Goodwin growing the artwork to include drawings of Pakistani clean air campaigner Abid Omar, founder of the pioneering Pakistan Air Quality Initiative – a community-driven organisation that addresses the country’s air pollution crisis through data, research, and advocacy. Goodwin’s drawings of Abid join those he made of six London-based activists, including Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah CBE, who began her activism after the death of her 9-year-old daughter Ella – the first person in the world to have air pollution cited as a cause of death.

This year’s installation across Pakistan’s second-largest city comes at a crisis point for air pollution in the country and wider region. It is estimated that a staggering 98% of Pakistan’s population live in areas where pollution levels exceed the country’s own air quality standards, with outdoor air pollution becoming the second greatest threat to human health in the country, taking nearly 4 years off the life of the average Pakistani. The ambition and scale of this creative intervention across the city – where understanding and engagement in the issue remains low – represents a turning point in raising local public awareness and mobilising communities to call for change.

“As Breathe tours to each new city, it connects up a diverse and growing network of clean air activists, a worldwide ‘collective’ of individuals who each endeavour, with urgency and resistance, to bring about local transformation. Their actions contribute incrementally to confronting the global air pollution emergency and the need for radical and lasting change.” Dryden Goodwin

Breathe:Lahore, Dryden Goodwin. Image Courtesy the artist and Invisible Dust 2024

The ‘Breathe:Lahore’ animation appearing on 1000’s of screens across Lahore

Breathe:Lahore is supported by air quality campaigners across Pakistan and was accompanied by a knowledge exchange symposium in Lahore on 8th October 2024, supported by funds from UCL. Convening leading figures on air quality and environmental action working within arts, health, policy, law and campaigning sectors from across Pakistan and the UK, experts from both countries are sharing learnings on the international challenge of tackling air pollution.

Pakistani Campaigner Abid Omar of Pakistan Air Quality Initiative in front of the Breathe:Lahore animated projection in Bradlaugh Hall, Lahore. Image M. Omar for Pakistan Air Quality Initiative, 2024

Press: The Guardian on Breathe:Lahore

Breathe:Lahore in the Guardian, Tuesday 29th October 2024

Dryden Goodwin talks to Pakistan TV World (popular Breakfast show) about Breathe:Lahore

Why Lahore?

LB03 asks artists to link their own contexts with Pakistan’s calamitous floods, environment and agriculture, urban pollution and social inequality. News on Sunday says of the issue in Lahore “Smog has become more than a serious issue; it has assumed the proportions of a crisis“.

Air pollution is a critical environmental issue that disproportionately affects the Global South. The rapid pace of urbanisation in the Global South has also contributed significantly to air pollution, as people migrate from rural areas to cities isearch of better economic opportunities, urban areas become densely populated, leading to increased vehicular traffic, construction activities and energy consumption. Major Pakistan cities such as Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, and Peshawar face significant challenges with air pollution due to rapid urbanisation and high concentration of vehicles alongside agricultural practices, the brick kiln industry and the burning of biomass and solid fuels for cooking and heating.

From London to Lahore: Replicated Methodology

Breathe:Lahore marks the latest iteration of the Breathe series which began in 2012 and was revisited 10 years later as Breathe:2022 for the Mayor of London’s Borough of Culture in Lewisham. Following this was the special memorial event Breathe for Ella, unveiled in 2023 on London’s Southbank, again supported by the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, created to bring further awareness to the capital city’s growing air pollution problem and the proposed ‘Ella’s Law’ which would enshrine the right to breathe clean air in UK law.

In London, Breathe collaborated with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Transport for London, Network Rail, Imperial College, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL and another 60+ key organisations working within health, environment and policy to best animate public discourse on air pollution and signpost real world, tangible change (like the ULEZ extension, ‘Ella’s Law’). This methodology for leveraging impact will be replicated in Lahore – and we are connecting up with the key agencies and individuals striving to make change in the region – such as the amazing crowd-sourced, community-driven Pakistan Air Quality Initiative.