Weaponized air
Columbia GSAPP Adv V | Fall 2020
Studio Critic: Nahyun Hwang
Air has historically been a weapon of environmental, social, and political control. The mapping traces the history of weaponized air, from tactics of offense such as tear gas, chlorine gas, and pesticides, as well as tactics of defense, ventilators, gas masks, to DIY everyday tools of personal protection like umbrellas and leaf blowers.
The collage further explore the way air divides and privileges certain groups of people, spaces, and institutions over others. The first one weighs the range of air, fresh air to polluted/weaponized air during protest and how they create boundaries and barriers. The second illustrates the imbalanced ownership and necropolitics of air in cities, how bad air targets less privileged populations over others.
