On Friday the lovely, Kate and I set up shop just inside the entrance to the library. I was giving out free samples of imported air from the cleanest, freshest places in the world! and taking orders for more of it. We had air from the untouched Antarctic, tropical Samoa, freshy fresh Patagonia, and crispy New Zealand. We invited everyone to unscrew a sample container and inhale the freshness. Oh, it was fresh. New Zealand air was quite popular, and we ran out of that first.
Some took the little jars to go, someone asked us if they should put it in their fridge? Most looked at us skeptically or with great curiosity or great confusion. haha. Quite a few people asked us if this had anything to do with a scene from Space Balls? Which I hadn't heard of until now, but just before the sale I learned about air sales from the movie The Lorax, and the idea is similar. I told people that we were trying to bring fresh air back to Cache Valley, especially during the winter months. Someone looked at me and said, "couldn't we just drive less?" Exactly. We aren't really "selling clean air," but our air here isn't clean. We don't drink dirty water, but there's a huge industry for bottled water now, and when bottled water first came out, that seemed like a totally crazy idea. The point is that we could end up having to sell clean air, or we could all try to do our part and avoid that. The latter would be nice! I started looking online to see if this had been done before, and it has! In Beijing, China, a millionaire philanthropist starting giving out and selling cans of Fresh Air! Another artist from Beijing auctioned off a jar of air from Provence, France for $860! All of this was done to encourage the government to get serious about the poor air quality. Check out photos of an event where fresh mountain air was brought to citizens in bags. Now bottled air is being sold at tourist sites. When I first thought of trying to sell clean air, I thought it was a totally nonsensical notion, turns out in some places it's already becoming a reality.
After giving out some air, Kate offered an even better solution - natural air purifiers, aka Plants! She gave out wildflower seeds that were native to the area and that that attracted pollinators. Along with that she gave out compressed dirt (expands with water) and little decomposable pots that can be planted directly into the earth. Oh yeah, we even repurposed the used sample containers to hold wildflower seeds.
Thus, everyone walked away with a little wildflower starter kit, and hopefully these can start spotting Logan with some color and air purity! yeah! Everyone seemed excited to get their new plants and start growing, and it was cool to give out something that can be part of the solution.
It's been fun trying out the conceptual side of things as far as art goes, and really trying to help people rethink air quality. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to check it out! We had a great time.
