The air we share

About the exhibition

Invitation to hold your breath and take a deep breath

Air is omnipresent and yet elusive. It is always in motion and connects living beings - across ecosystems and geological eras. We humans also live in and through the air: we breathe it in and out around 20,000 times a day. And yet we behave as if we are not dependent on it. Through our actions, we change the air and thus increasingly also our living conditions.

The exhibition takes these changes as an opportunity to examine not only the physical properties of air but also its social impact - both locally and globally. Follow the movements of air through different ecosystems and geological eras and across national borders.

At the beginning of the exhibition tour, an air archive brings together personal air and perceptions of air. Fog catchers, which are used to filter water out of the air in places with low precipitation, capture air movements and air phenomena for visitors in the exhibition. A giant air conditioning pipe tells of the attempts to bring the air under control.

Numerous works of art and interactive stations are integrated into the exhibition, inviting visitors to discuss global environmental issues related to the state of the air. With an “emissions memory”, for example, the often abstract dimensions of CO2 emissions can be revealed.

 

Objects (selection)

This oldest type of mill in Europe began turning in France and Belgium in the 11th century and became the most widespread mill in Germany in the 15th century. Windmills can use the wind from all directions, as they sit on a vertical pole and are turned into the wind as a whole around this axis. They are therefore rather small. This type of mill already has a horizontal rotor axis, like almost all modern wind turbines and windmills, Liebschützer Bockwindmühle, 1924/1928, © Deutsche Fotothek, Photo: Oskar Kaubisch
Dyson Zone™ headphones with active noise cancellation and removable visor with purified air, 2023, © Dyson
The first cloud atlas was published in 1896. The latest 2017 edition of the International Cloud Atlas adds a new category, “Homogenitus”, and includes photographic images of anthropogenic clouds such as contrails and clouds generated by industrial plants. See here: Stratocu-mulus cumulogenitus homogenitus. Stratocumulus cumu-logenitus homogenitus, WMO International Cloud Atlas, photo: Karlona Plskova
Thomas Baldwin describes his one-day balloon flight on 400 pages. He enthusiastically documents the effect of different altitudes on his body and undertakes taste tests with ginger and salt. His later engravings of the journey are as spectacular as the view from the balloon basket in 1785: the first known images from the air. They show the changing proportions of the landscape and the curvature of the horizon A view from the balloon at its greatest elevation, 1786, copperplate engraving (reproduction), From: Thomas Baldwin, Airopaidia: containing the narrative of a balloon excursion from Chester, the eighth of September, 1785, taken from minutes made during the voyage, Chester: Fletcher, 1786, p. 58, Public domain
Since the 19th century, canaries have been used in mining to warn of “dull weather” (harmful gas mixtures) in the mine. If a bird stops singing, this is an alarm signal: The miners immediately get to safety. In this cage, which was once used in England and Australia, a bird with signs of poisoning can be resuscitated. To do this, oxygen is fed into the cage through the tank, which serves as a handle, Bird cage with oxygen cylinder, Siebe Gorman and Company Limited, 1920-1930, metal, glass, plastic, rubber, papier-mâché, LWL-Museen für Industriekultur, photo: Inga Geiser
Half of the global tropospheric aerosol consists of mineral dust. Half of this comes from the Saha-ra: around one billion tons per year. The sand dust is carried by trade winds from Africa across the Atlantic to South America. The rainforest there benefits from its fertilizing effect, as does the oceanic plankton. In the earth's atmosphere, mineral dust scatters solar radiation and is a condensation nucleus for clouds. Saharan dust, fallen in Thuringia 7.2.2021, microscopic image in polarized light (repro-duction), photo: Heiko4, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
This oldest type of mill in Europe began turning in France and Belgium in the 11th century and became the most widespread mill in Germany in the 15th century. Windmills can use the wind from all directions, as they sit on a vertical pole and are turned into the wind as a whole around this axis. They are therefore rather small. This type of mill already has a horizontal rotor axis, like almost all modern wind turbines and windmills, Liebschützer Bockwindmühle, 1924/1928, © Deutsche Fotothek, Photo: Oskar Kaubisch
Dyson Zone™ headphones with active noise cancellation and removable visor with purified air, 2023, © Dyson
The first cloud atlas was published in 1896. The latest 2017 edition of the International Cloud Atlas adds a new category, “Homogenitus”, and includes photographic images of anthropogenic clouds such as contrails and clouds generated by industrial plants. See here: Stratocu-mulus cumulogenitus homogenitus. Stratocumulus cumu-logenitus homogenitus, WMO International Cloud Atlas, photo: Karlona Plskova
Thomas Baldwin describes his one-day balloon flight on 400 pages. He enthusiastically documents the effect of different altitudes on his body and undertakes taste tests with ginger and salt. His later engravings of the journey are as spectacular as the view from the balloon basket in 1785: the first known images from the air. They show the changing proportions of the landscape and the curvature of the horizon A view from the balloon at its greatest elevation, 1786, copperplate engraving (reproduction), From: Thomas Baldwin, Airopaidia: containing the narrative of a balloon excursion from Chester, the eighth of September, 1785, taken from minutes made during the voyage, Chester: Fletcher, 1786, p. 58, Public domain
Since the 19th century, canaries have been used in mining to warn of “dull weather” (harmful gas mixtures) in the mine. If a bird stops singing, this is an alarm signal: The miners immediately get to safety. In this cage, which was once used in England and Australia, a bird with signs of poisoning can be resuscitated. To do this, oxygen is fed into the cage through the tank, which serves as a handle, Bird cage with oxygen cylinder, Siebe Gorman and Company Limited, 1920-1930, metal, glass, plastic, rubber, papier-mâché, LWL-Museen für Industriekultur, photo: Inga Geiser
Half of the global tropospheric aerosol consists of mineral dust. Half of this comes from the Saha-ra: around one billion tons per year. The sand dust is carried by trade winds from Africa across the Atlantic to South America. The rainforest there benefits from its fertilizing effect, as does the oceanic plankton. In the earth's atmosphere, mineral dust scatters solar radiation and is a condensation nucleus for clouds. Saharan dust, fallen in Thuringia 7.2.2021, microscopic image in polarized light (repro-duction), photo: Heiko4, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

The exhibition rooms

Air archive

200 stories in a jar

We share it with each other and yet we do not breathe the same air: what at first glance appears to be a collection of empty vessels is actually an archive of the most diverse airs and individual perceptions of air. Although the contents of the jars almost always look the same, the samples are very different from one another: each one tells the story of how air relates people to their environment in the most diverse ways and becomes a carrier of human sensations.

Miasma: The picture from 1831 was intended to depict the spread of cholera through bad air. At the time, doctors assumed that epidemics were spread by “foul fumes”.
McLean's monthly sheet of caricatures, Public Domain, National Library of Medicine

Invisible

Air as a connection

How do you grasp something that cannot be grasped? Air is a mystery to people. It is invisible, formless and fleeting. What is in the air? How can its movements be understood and who does it connect? How we answer these questions varies historically and culturally: they range from sensory perception and scientific observation to mythical tales and religious interpretations. How do these ideas shape our relationship to the air and our interaction with it?

Good air vs. bad air? Air purifiers provide protection for those who can afford it. They are being used more and more in metropolitan areas.
© Dyson

Measured

Air under control

Air never stands still. We are exposed to the incessant changes in its temperature, composition and movement. And dream of being able to control the air. Today, it is scientifically measured, politically regulated and technically designed. From “smoke-free” cities to experiments designed to make people completely independent of the earth's atmosphere: Who do regulated air zones and artificially created climates include and who do they exclude? Who decides what is good and what is bad air? And how does air, which is invisible, transboundary and always in motion, resist these attempts at control?

Making the invisible visible: Carbon Topologies is a 3D map of all CO2 emissions from the global economy since the 1970s.
The Atmospheric Data Collective (ADC), 2022, Tom Corby

Debatable

Air as a common good

Like the high seas or the Antarctic, the Earth's atmosphere is not under the control of any government: It is considered a global commons. This makes it difficult to negotiate binding rules for its protection and use. Is there a right to clean air? How are the needs of all breathing creatures taken into account? What opportunities and risks lie in technical solutions such as geoengineering?

Artistic works (selection)

Oedipal Complications (flight experiment), Anna and Bernhard Blume, 1977 - 1978, gelatine silver prints, estate of Anna & Bernhard Blume
Rikuo Ueda constructs devices that turn the wind into a creative force: When only mild breezes blow, the strokes are as delicate as calligraphy, RIKUO UEDA: Wind drawings, 2015, Ota garden, wind, ink, acrylic paint on Hong Kong dollar bill, 7.5 x 14 cm, courtesy of MIKIKO SATO GALLERY
The city of Delhi, where Vibha Gal-hotra lives and works, never knows a day without bad air. The artist dedicates her work to Vayu, the ancient Indian god of wind, air and the breath of life. She can be seen on steaming garbage dumps, along busy roads and the construction sites of a capital-driven urbanity. She is concerned with tangible property and ownership relationships. Driven by the realization that companies are bottling “clean air” and offering it for sale on the Internet. Vibha Galhotra: Breath by Breath, Delhi, 2016/17, Photo: Vibha Galhotra
Un-Pollute, 2017, Videostill, 3 Min., Zlatko Ćosić
Oedipal Complications (flight experiment), Anna and Bernhard Blume, 1977 - 1978, gelatine silver prints, estate of Anna & Bernhard Blume
Rikuo Ueda constructs devices that turn the wind into a creative force: When only mild breezes blow, the strokes are as delicate as calligraphy, RIKUO UEDA: Wind drawings, 2015, Ota garden, wind, ink, acrylic paint on Hong Kong dollar bill, 7.5 x 14 cm, courtesy of MIKIKO SATO GALLERY
The city of Delhi, where Vibha Gal-hotra lives and works, never knows a day without bad air. The artist dedicates her work to Vayu, the ancient Indian god of wind, air and the breath of life. She can be seen on steaming garbage dumps, along busy roads and the construction sites of a capital-driven urbanity. She is concerned with tangible property and ownership relationships. Driven by the realization that companies are bottling “clean air” and offering it for sale on the Internet. Vibha Galhotra: Breath by Breath, Delhi, 2016/17, Photo: Vibha Galhotra
Un-Pollute, 2017, Videostill, 3 Min., Zlatko Ćosić

Project participants

Project team

Neli Wagner (DHMD), curator and project manager
Nele-Hendrikje Lehmann (DHMD), co-curator and research assistant
Laura Schmidt (DHMD), curatorial assistant, mediation
Bettina Beer (DHMD), project assistant

Exhibition design

Janek Müller (Berlin), dramaturgy & scenography
Wir von Kebnekaise - Tina Buß, Irmhild Gumm (Berlin), design planning, execution planning and production management
Wir von Kebnekaise with Matthies, Weber and Schnegg (Berlin), graphic design

Artistic works by, among others:

The Atmospheric Data Collective (ADC), Frank Bloem, Anna and Bernhard Blume, Zlatko Ćosić, Vibha Galhotra, Sonja Hornung and Daniele Tognozzi, Emily Parsons-Lord, Werner Reiterer, Karolina Sobecka and Chris Woebken, Koki Tanaka, Rikuo Ueda, Nils Völker and many more.

Arielle Bobb-Willis, Keyvisual
Funkelbach, graphic design

Funded by

Modernes Landessignet des Freistaats Sachsen in grün mit Förderhinweis
Schriftzug Sächsische Landesstelle für Museumswesen an den Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Diese Maßnahme wird mitfinanziert durch Steuermittel auf der Grundlage des vom Sächsischen Landtag beschlossenen Haushaltes
Logo von Melitta in rot und grau
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