Projections of six clean air activists to be shown across Lewisham in ‘fight for breath’

The finale of Lewisham’s Borough of Culture year, 2022, will display animated drawings of six Lewisham activists and residents in the fight for cleaner air.

The unveiling of the finale of artist Dryden Goodwin’s Breathe:2022, produced by Invisible Dust, will take place at Lewisham Old Town Hall in Catford at 6pm on November 30.

It is the culmination of a year-long programme exploring the impact of air pollution. 

Reimagining and extending his 2012 Breathe artwork, which featured drawings of his five-year-old son inhaling and exhaling air, Mr Goodwin has created a multi-site commission, combining drawings of six Lewisham residents. 

Participants from local activist groups including Choked Up, Mums for Lungs, Clean Air for Catford, and the Ella Roberta Family Foundation, as well as Mr Goodwin’s now 15-year-old son and a younger school child, have been drawn by the Lewisham-based artist as they “fight for breath”.

The 1,300 drawings of the six residents and activists will be animated in a public projection on the heavily polluted South Circular Road, projected on to the side of Lewisham’s Old Town Hall in Catford. 

The finale of Breathe: 2022 will light up the night sky for two weeks.

One featured activist is the tireless campaigner Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, mother of Ella Kissi-Debrah, who died in 2013 from an asthma attack in Lewisham. 

A 2020 landmark coroner’s judgement found “exposure to excessive air pollution” had contributed to Ella’s death.

Premiering alongside Breathe: 2022 will be Drawing Breath, an ambitious new animation co-created by more than 130 Lewisham secondary school pupils, in partnership with the artist. 

This new project is a collective animation featuring a further 800 original drawings made by the pupils this autumn, across five participating schools.

Lucy Wood, from Invisible Dust, said: “Projected high above London’s choked streets, Breathe: 2022 will act as a ‘bat signal’ for urgent action on air pollution.

“Working with scientists and the amazing campaigners has ensured Dryden’s project is not only filled with hope but grounded in the grave realities of air pollution’s impact on our health and communities.”

On Breathe: 2022 Dryden Goodwin said: “I experience drawing as an act of empathy, thinking yourself into another person’s life, their emotions and story as you draw them.

“As it’s clear we don’t all breathe the same air, the role of empathy will play a vital role if we are going to achieve the change needed locally and globally.

“Through making hundreds of drawings of these six individuals – the activists, my son and a younger local child – animation seems to become a metaphor for essential collective action.”

Damien Egan, Mayor of Lewisham, said: “The Breathe: 2022 projections will be quite the spectacle across the borough, in a fitting end to the year-long programme of climate activity as part of our year as London Borough of Culture 2022. 

“We are proud to be working with many local creative and climate organisations, as well as local schools and young people in a shared commitment to take action on the climate emergency.”

Pictured top: An artist’s impression of the projection (Picture: Breathe: 2022, Dryden Goodwin. Image courtesy of the artist and Invisible Dust, 2022)