Clean Air Art Installation - News - Loughborough Primary School

News

Clean Air Art Installation

Our year 3 children took part in a very exciting project.

 

The “clean air” art installation has brought some brightly coloured attention to the invisible problem of air pollution. The children, with some help from local artist Hannah Littlejones, used willow to write the words, and plastic pollution to create an inventive array of air-borne insects and non-polluting vehicles to highlight the importance of clean air, particularly for children.

Mums for Lungs, a grassroots organisation in Lambeth, organised the collaboration to highlight the importance of clean air . “Air pollution affects all of us, but particularly children, who breathe faster and deeper than adults, and are closer to car exhausts. It’s been great working with the school to explore the issue and look into ways we can reduce pollution.”

The children are aware of its effects. “Air pollution means kids might get sick, and their lungs don’t grow,” said Jahdane Grant, one of the Year 3 artists. “If there’s too much air pollution we’ll find it hard to breathe,” agreed Omarqani Hussein, age 7. This is backed up by research that shows the lungs of children in London are stunted by 13%, causing lifelong illnesses.

The children imagined and created fantastic alternatives to fossil-fuel burning vehicles; drones that drift on the wind, float using umbrellas or are propelled by the air. They also celebrated flying insects that need clean air to continue their important work of pollinating our crops. Chubby sock-bees were a popular theme, as our photos show.