THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE AIR WE BREATHE
Into Thin Air was created for Schemerlicht Festival 2022, two years after the COVID-19 pandemic had changed the way we think about the air around us. Developed around the festival theme Luchtruim (i.e. Airspace), the project explores the trillions of invisible microorganisms that occupy the atmosphere and shape our health and environment.
At the centre of the installation is an 800 kg steel frame holding 3,500 petri dishes filled with agar, a gel used to cultivate bacteria, and exposed to the surrounding air. As microorganisms carried through the atmosphere gradually developed into visible cultures, the grid transformed into the form of a globe, turning an invisible ecosystem into a physical portrait of the microorganisms living in the air we breathe.