Visualizing air pollution and future flooding due to sea level rise in East Boston, MA.

From Above & Below was a temporary installation developed with the Trustees Waterfront Ambassadors Youth group to visualize the impact of air pollution and future sea level rise in East Boston, MA. The project was inspired by Nigel Cummings’ Afterglow—which investigated the creation of a kit-of-parts using colored tulle fabric, and PVC pipes to create temporary structures that would use colors to represent the amounts of toxic pollutants in the air near schools.

This work, as well as From Above and Below, visualized data about local air pollution, thus expanding public knowledge about current conditions in this site. The data for these projects comes from the UMass Amherst Political Economy Research Institute’s Air Toxics at Schools Interactive Tracking Tool developed under the guidance of Professor Michael Ash, who collaborated in this project.

Our team identified the major air pollutants affecting East Boston, and color coded them using tulle fabric on the top of the frames. The bottom of the frames were filled with light blue tulle showing the future flooding modeled to impact East Boston.

The frames created by the group of students were then photographed in various locations in East Boston.

To see the reports developed by the Waterfront Ambassadors group, click here.