How does it feel to breathe in Beijing? We are exploring the US Department of State “Mission China” Air Quality dataset in an effort to recreate the experience of breathing with varying degrees of difficulty.
We are grouping the data into three categories: good air quality, moderate, and low. With each category, a different breathing experience aims to be simulated using different straws.
We believe this is a powerful physical data experience because it is simple in execution but powerful in action. The simple act of trying to breathe through different straws re-creates the experience of having different levels of breathing difficulty. This directly connects a person in this exhibition with a person living in Beijing that has different breathing difficulties due to the air pollution levels.
In order to differentiate the air pollution levels, we have used colors and the diameter of the straw.
This is the data for 2016:
Green color – Hours where measured air pollution is less than 100: 6720 hours, 76.8% of total hours for the year
Yellow color – Hours where measured air pollution is between 101 and 200: 1418 hours, 16.2% of total hours for the year
Red color – Hours where measured air pollution is greater than 200: 617 hours, 7% of total hours for the year.\
Team: Kallirroi Retzepi, Helen K. Bailey, Mitchel L Myers, and Marc Exposito