Breathe (2022)

Breathe:2022 (2022)
A year long multi-site art work centred in the borough of Lewisham, that appeared across London and sites across the UK - including over 1,300 drawings, shown as individual and sequences of posters, still and animated, printed and digital. 'Breathe:2022' culminated with the completed animation being projected on Lewisham's Old Town Hall, Catford town in November/December 2022.

A decade on Dryden Goodwin reimagined and extended his 2012 'Breathe' (SEE LINK) artwork shown first opposite the Houses of Parliament, next to Westminster bridge. 10 years ago Goodwin drew 100s of drawings of his then 5-year-old son breathing. For 'Breathe:2022' Goodwin created a new body of drawings of local activists and residents, from his home borough of Lewisham, who are 'fighting for breath', urgently challenging and pushing for change to improve the quality of the air we breathe. Taking over buildings and bridges close to the heavily polluted South Circular Road, zoetropic poster sequences were shown for a year. These in November/December as a large-scale animation of over 1,300 drawings, projected onto Lewisham's Old Town Hall, Catford.

For this multi-site commission for Lewisham, London Borough of Culture, Goodwin worked with Lucy Wood, who produced the project for Invisible Dust.

As well as showing in Lewisham the project reached out across London and other parts of the country, in different forms - still and animated posters, printed and digital. It has been seen by over 13 million people. Relating to the growing battle for climate justice, the project connects this global health emergency to the daily lives of Londoners and those campaigning for clean air worldwide.

Six individuals from across the borough bear witness to the impacts of air pollution - and the power of activism - through their bodies and breath. Participants from local activist groups including Choked Up, Mums for Lungs, Clean Air for Catford, and Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah - mother of Ella and the founder of the Ella Roberta Family Foundation, as well as Goodwin's now 15 year old son, who has grown up in Lewisham, and a younger school child.

Over the last 10 years Lewisham has found itself at the centre of the clean air debate, Rosamund's campaign for clean air followed the death of her 9-year-old daughter Ella Roberta, in 2013, who had experienced a series of severe asthma attacks over several years. Rosamund campaigned for air pollution to be included on her child's death certificate, leading to the landmark ruling in 2020, that pollution from the South Circular Road, was a contributing factor to Ella Roberta's death.

* For the month of June 2022, across Lewisham, London and UK, drawings from 'Breathe:2022' were shown as still and animated posters on over 250+ JCDecaux digital screens, next to roads, motorways, at bus stops and at railway stations- through JCDecaux's Community Channel.

* 'Breathe:2022' was also featured at the Wellcome Collection, as part of their exhibition 'In the Air', May until October 2022.

* 'We Breathe, Together' was a day of community air action and exploration at the Horniman on the 17th September 2022.

* an 80 metre sequence of posters was shown along Euston Road as part of the Bloomsbury festival in October 2022.

* In addition 'Drawing Breath' was a related ambitious school's programme devised by Goodwin, that ran across the Autumn of 2022, involving over 130 secondary school children working with Dryden Goodwin to create a collaborative animation. This was also produced by Lucy Wood and informed and supported by Dr Ian Midway, an air pollution scientist artist based at Imperial College.

* 'Breathe:2022' remained in public locations around Lewisham until December 2022. The project for Lewisham Borough of Culture culminated as a large-scale projection animating over 1,300 drawings in November 2022 to close the programme.

* 'Breathe For Ella' - On the 10th anniversary of the passing of 9-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah – the first person in the world to have ‘air pollution’ listed as a cause of death – a new iteration of the ‘Breathe’ animation was projected large-scale on London’s South Bank in her memory. Illuminating the side of the Rambert Building, positioned next to the busy Waterloo Bridge.

With thanks to Anjali Raman-Middleton, Rosamund Kissi-Adoo-Deborah, Ted Burke, Alice Tate-Harte, Heath Cole-Goodwin, Tafari McCalla and Dr Ian Mudway. With thanks also to Stuart Keegan for the first 3 and the 9th photographs in the Euston Road section

Installation documentation 'Breathe:2022' (2022)