LAHORE: British artist Dryden Goodwin’s acclaimed artwork, Breathe, is a part of the ongoing Lahore Biennale 03.

Breathe: Lahore is the project’s international city debut with Goodwin growing the artwork to include Pakistani clean air campaigner Abid Omar, the founder of the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative. Goodwin’s drawings of Omar 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.

Dryden Goodwin’s Breathe, produced by UK art-science organisation Invisible Dust, is an evolving public artwork that addresses the global air pollution crisis. Created after dialogue with leading air pollution scientists and campaigners, Breathe features 1,600 pencil drawings of clean air activists ‘fighting for breath’.

Appearing at iconic sites across the city, including Bradlaugh Hall, the Mall Road and hundreds of digital billboards across the city (with more sites to appear over the month), Breathe: Lahore highlights the public health crisis caused by declining air quality in one most polluted cities of the world.

The artwork 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.

Speaking about the artwork’s arrival in Lahore, Mete Coban MBE, the deputy mayor of London for environment and energy, said: “I’m pleased that Dryden Goodwin’s evolving work Breathe has been unveiled in Lahore to further spread its important message across the world. I hope the expansion of this artwork will help inspire and educate others of the need to take action for the good of everyone’s health.”

Goodwin’s artwork seeks to raise awareness of the body’s vulnerability to pollution while celebrating the potential of collective action. He sees drawing another person as an act of empathy vital to bring about change in societies amid the global health emergency.

This year’s installation across Lahore comes at a crisis point for air pollution in the country. It is estimated that a 98pc 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 four years off the life of the average Pakistani.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2024