Air

Air

Atmosphere 2 may give us a renewed appreciation for the properties of air, both as a political and poetic construct. Here the artists draw out the atmospheric effects of air as a field of transcendental form that blurs the line between earth and sky. Finally the bonds of kinship and diaspora are explored through a consideration of migratory patterns. In these ways, air becomes vision, breath and flight.

Here air is a habitat, a realm that sustains movement and in which migrating birds are metaphors for human diasporas. Air is also introduced as a malleable substance, as different forms of wind produce the environmental devastation of soil in Ethiopia or the atmospheric violence of thunderstorms in Johannesburg. How might the air around us – manifest as the powerful effects of wind and storms on our environment and the spaces we inhabit – compel us to rethink our relationship to kin?

Installation views of ATMOSPHERE 2. Air: Migration and Kin: Michael Tsegaye, Ankober (2007) and Afar II (2023). © Michael Tsegaye; Sutapa Biswas, Time Flies (2004–2021). © Sutapa Biswas. All Rights Reserved. DACS 2024. Jonah Sack, Thunderstorm Typology (2020) and Cloud Tower (2023). © Jonah Sack. Photos Graham De Lacy