Towards Atmospheric Care

Friday 26 August, 13:15–14:15
Sibelius Museum

Smog, Aurora, Telecommunication: Situating Atmospheric Care

Hanna Husberg, Agáta Marzecová

Exploring Beijing’s smog, infrastructure for sensing Earth-Sun interactions and the information-carrying capacity of the electromagnetic spectrum, the interdisciplinary research project Towards Atmospheric Care asks: how can we care for what is inaccessible to direct experience, but still structures our daily lives? Calling attention to the overlapping boundaries between the aesthetic, science and politics of air and atmosphere, this situated approach highlights that atmospheric sensibilities are not naturally granted but emerge through non-neutral scientific, managerial and cultural practices that interweave different bodies, technologies and sociotechnical imaginaries. Bringing theory, criticism and scientific research together with feminist methodologies, art and poetics, this collaborative hopes to cultivate atmospheric care as a broadly interdisciplinary, political and collective concern. 

Picture of Hanna Husberg

Hanna Husberg is a visual artist and Junior Lecturer at the Department for Research and Further Education in Architecture and Fine Art, Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm. She recently completed her Phd-in-Practice project Troubled Atmosphere – On Noticing Air (Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Wien, 2021), which through the lens of four different art projects looks at layered, inconsistent, muddled, unruly, contaminated gatherings of air, inquiring how air has been conceptualised and perceived, and how the construction of aerial imaginaries enables specific ways of engaging with the world and excludes others. With Agáta Marzecová she has developed the interdisciplinary research project Towards Atmospheric Care.

Picture of Agata Marzecova

Agáta Marzecová has a dual background in environmental science and photography and new media. Her interdisciplinary practice is situated at the intersection of research, pedagogy, art and ecology. She has contributed to articles in Boreal Environment Research, Die Erde, Anthropocene Review, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, and The Baltic Atlas as well as interdisciplinary and artistic projects, such as the Baltic Pavilion (15th International Architecture Venice Biennale, 2016), The Baltic Material Assemblies (Architectural Association & RIBA London 2018) and the research collaborative Towards Atmospheric Care.