Knitting the Air: The Exhibition

Knitting the Air presents a free exhibition exploring air pollution, place, and community made by 132 knitters from across Poplar, Bow and wider east London. What does the air you breathe look like? For 132 knitters from Poplar, Bow and east London, the answer took shape over two and a half years, stitch by stitch, as a 13-metre knitted textile that translates a year of air pollution data into something you can both see and touch. At the heart of this exhibition is the knitting itself: a vivid, large-scale work created from readings gathered by two Breathe London Communities sensors located in Poplar, one near the A12 and one at the Blackwall Tunnel approach. It visualised two pollutants which are harmful for our health, Nitrogen Dioxide and Particulate Matter 2.5. Alongside it, objects and materials from the making process reveal the skill, care and collective effort behind every knitted row, tracing the journey from raw scientific data to something handmade, tactile and human. This exhibition is also about voices. A new film shines a spotlight on the knitters themselves, the residents who gave thousands of hours of their time to make this work, sharing what it meant to knit data about the air in their own neighbourhood, and what that process revealed about the place they call home. Their reflections sit alongside more than 400 responses gathered from the wider community, capturing what air quality means to people across east London. Their reflections bring everyday experiences of air pollution into focus, highlighting their concerns for their health, hopes for change and a deep appreciation that clean air is fundamental to life. A public programme of free creative workshops, events and talks accompanies the exhibition, inviting people to explore air, place and community, to connect with the work and share their perspectives. Together, the textile, the objects, the film, and the community voices make the invisible visible. Modern air pollution can be easy to overlook when it cannot be seen. Here, it becomes a shared story and a living archive, told through wool and data, by hands and hours, and in the words of the people who live with it every day. _Knitting the Air: The Exhibition is supported using public funding from **Arts Council England** and in partnership with **The Aberfeldy Practice, Imperial College London, Bow Arts Trust** and **London College of Fashion**._