Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
This episode, we are taking a trip to the Port of Providence, to learn about an art installation that is helping to raise awareness about air quality.
Isha Thakkar and Leo Nachamie from our Possibly Team are here to tell us more.
Isha Thakkar: Hi, Megan!
Leo Nachamie: Hello!
Megan Hall: So can art help us understand our air quality?
Isha Thakkar: Great question! To find out, we talked to Eli Nixon, an artist that specializes in collaborative public art projects.
Leo Nachamie: Last summer Eli and a team of artists set up a windsock art installation at the end of Public Street in South Providence.
Isha Thakkar: The installation involved flying different colored windsocks at a small water access point near the Port of Providence.
Leo Nachamie: Each color represented a different level on the air quality index, which measures how polluted the air is at any given moment.
Isha Thakkar: Yellow is for moderate air quality, orange shows that the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups, and red is for when the air is so polluted that anyone may experience health effects.
Megan Hall: What is this installation trying to accomplish?
Leo Nachamie: Eli wanted to bring outside attention to the quality of our air. They hope this project will bring a sense of urgency for the neighborhoods around the port:
Eli Nixon: What I was trying to do was amplify their concerns to be seen by a larger providence that has yet to invest in protecting this public right of way.
Isha Thakkar: Rhode Island has one of the highest asthma rates in the country. And the neighborhood around the Port of Providence is particularly vulnerable because of all of the nearby industries that pump pollution into the air.
Eli Nixon: And yet our politicians are not treating it with that kind of emergency level.
Leo Nachamie: Eli wants their work to serve a purpose in the community, to serve as a bridge between art and public health.
Eli Nixon: I’m trying to make a useful tool for local residents that actually speaks to their concerns about their own well being in their own neighborhood in real time.
Isha Thakkar: With that goal in mind, Eli also built a temporary gazebo at the community access point, so people could sit near the water.
Leo Nachamie: The installation turned a pretty un-kept area into a beautiful gathering place-- it’s one of the few places where people in the area can access the river.
Eli Nixon: So my project was like, Ooh, how can I lift up what is beautiful about this place, and what many neighborhood residents have been yelling for and organizing around for decades is safe, pedestrian-centered public access to the bay.
Leo Nachamie: Eli says that protecting public spaces to gather and enjoy nature safely, can lead to domino effects:
Eli Nixon: If we don’t take care of the one spot that is for the public, where our needs are supposed to be prioritized, they’re supposed to be held at the center of what this tiny strip is, because they’re not being held at the center of any of these other spots. So it’s a strategic foothold to yell so hard about this tiny thing, because it’s our one place to have any impact on what’s happening all around it.
Isha Thakkar: So not only are these windsocks being used to bring attention to poor air quality by the port, they’re also being used as a call to action to protect free, safe, public spaces.
Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Isha and Leo!
If you are interested in a windsocks project in your own community, you can get in touch with the People’s Port Authority and Eli Nixon.
That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the ways your choices affect our planet, at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on social media at “ask possibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Ocean State Media, and WBRU.
