Knitting the Air: The Exhibition

Knitting the Air presents a free exhibition exploring air pollution, place, and community made by 132 knitters from across Poplar, Bow and wider east London.

What does the air you breathe look like? For 132 knitters from Poplar, Bow and east London, the answer took shape over two and a half years, stitch by stitch, as a 13-metre knitted textile that translates a year of air pollution data into something you can both see and touch.

At the heart of this exhibition is the knitting itself: a vivid, large-scale work created from readings gathered by two Breathe London Communities sensors located in Poplar, one near the A12 and one at the Blackwall Tunnel approach. It visualised two pollutants which are harmful for our health, Nitrogen Dioxide and Particulate Matter 2.5. Alongside it, objects and materials from the making process reveal the skill, care and collective effort behind every knitted row, tracing the journey from raw scientific data to something handmade, tactile and human.

This exhibition is also about voices. A new film shines a spotlight on the knitters themselves, the residents who gave thousands of hours of their time to make this work, sharing what it meant to knit data about the air in their own neighbourhood, and what that process revealed about the place they call home. Their reflections sit alongside more than 400 responses gathered from the wider community, capturing what air quality means to people across east London. Their reflections bring everyday experiences of air pollution into focus, highlighting their concerns for their health, hopes for change and a deep appreciation that clean air is fundamental to life.

A public programme of free creative workshops, events and talks accompanies the exhibition, inviting people to explore air, place and community, to connect with the work and share their perspectives.

Together, the textile, the objects, the film, and the community voices make the invisible visible. Modern air pollution can be easy to overlook when it cannot be seen. Here, it becomes a shared story and a living archive, told through wool and data, by hands and hours, and in the words of the people who live with it every day.

Knitting the Air: The Exhibition is supported using public funding from Arts Council England and in partnership with The Aberfeldy Practice, Imperial College London, Bow Arts Trust and London College of Fashion.

More about Knitting the Air / Caroline Murray

Knitting the Air is a collective community art project blending science, data, art and community, using knitting to visualise air pollution data in Poplar, east London. Largely invisible and intangible to most, air pollution is one of the most pressing environmental risks to public health in the UK. Knitting the Air aims to make that scientific data accessible, tangible and personal.

Through the combined efforts of 132 knitters across Poplar, Bow and east London, the project has produced a 13-metre textile translating a year of air quality data into something handmade and human, inviting people to connect with the data that shapes their daily lives and to share their own stories about the air they breathe.

Knitting the Air is led by Caroline Murray, a creative community practitioner and textile artist. Working across knitting, quilting and weaving, her practice explores how collective making can foster connection, meaning and care – for ourselves, for one another and with the world around us.

@knittingtheair

Access information

The Nunnery Gallery and Cafe have step-free access throughout from street level, including to the accessible toilet, and is service animal friendly. This venue does not have a hearing loop system.

Accessible parking is not available on-site but blue badge parking can be found 500m away on Fairfield Road.

If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this venue or event, would like to make us aware of any access requirements that you have in advance of visiting, or would like this information in an alternate format including Easy Read, please email nunnery@bowarts.com or call 020 8980 7774 (Ext. 3)

Access requirements could include things like providing equipment, services or support (e.g. information in Easy Read, speech to text software, additional 1:1 support), adjusting workshop timings (e.g. more break times), adjustments to the event space (e.g. making sure you have a table near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!)

Opening hours: Tues-Sun, 10am to 4pm

Address: Nunnery Gallery, 181 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ

Nearest station(s): Bow Road (District and Hammersmith and City lines) is a 6-minute walk away, and Bow Church (DLR) is a 3-minute walk away.

Bus: 205, 25, 425, A8, D8, 108, 276, 488 and 8 all service the surrounding area.

Bike: Bicycle parking is located at Bow Church Station. The nearest Santander Cycles docking station is at Bow Church Station.