at the Institute of Creativity and Innovation (ICI), Xiamen University. The ICI was established in 2019 through a joint partnership between Xiamen University (XMU), China and the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), U.K. It offers courses in Visual Communication Design, Environmental Design and Digital Media Art. The ICI Summer Workshops is an academic program during a short summer semester. Every year, they invite international designers, artists, experts and scholars active in the fields of art and design.Piscaer’s design practice centers on the elusive presence of dust and air pollution. In her public lecture, she shared insights from Studio Dust, and her ongoing PhD research “Aerial and Airing” that investigates the materialization of air pollution.
Air pollution has a profound impact on human health and the environment—yet as it is largely invisible, it often goes unnoticed. Piscaer’s design practice centers on this elusive presence of dust and air. In her lecture, she will share insights from Studio Dust, her ongoing research project that investigates the materialization of air pollution. This includes her collaboration with designer Iris de Kievith on “Smogware”—a ceramic tableware colored by air pollution particles.
About Smogware
About PhD research Aerial and Airing
Annemarie was invited to lead a two-week workshop that invites students to look at the sky not just as a physical space, but as a vital force—an expression of Qi. Rooted in Chinese philosophy, Qi encompasses breath, air, energy, and life itself. As air pollution threatens both health and climate, the workshop asks: how do we sense, interpret, and respond to the changing quality of air? What happens when the breath of the world becomes obstructed?
Through observation—using tools like a light meter (data in Lux) to measure sky conditions—alongside reflection and hands-on work with materials such as drawing, photography, and cyanotype printing on textiles, students explored the invisible dynamics of air, bridging scientific data with embodied, material experience.
This exploration of air and breath will enrich Annemarie’s ongoing PhD research, offering new insights into the cultural dimensions of air.
Institute of Creativity and Innovation (ICI), Xiamen University
‘Humans are atmospheric beings, particles, dust, in intimate cycles of exchange, actors with an incredible force.’
‘We need to become attuned actors with a deeper understanding of all the other particles.’
Annemarie Piscaer is a researcher in the Situated Art, Design and Technology research group, tutor on the New Design & Attitudes study programme at St. Joost School of Art & Design, and PhD candidate in the Doctoral Program at KU Leuven.
The research group Situated Art, Design and Technology (SADT) focuses on the societal embedding and embodiment of knowledge production that art and design research enables. The conducted research contributes to a deeper understanding of technological developments and their impact on people, society, and the environment, and to the development of situated approaches in the creative sector and beyond. In doing so, it advances a wider acknowledgement of artistic and design research as a mode of knowledge production, one that is grounded in creativity and critical imagination as a way of generating insight into, and intervening in, societal transitions driven by technology.
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