Community Smog results from a collaboration between the artist Kim Abeles and Northern Colorado community members to create Smog Collectors—works that illustrate air quality. Smog Collector images are created by placing stencils on plates or fabric and leaving them outside to collect particulate matter from the air. The worse the air quality, the darker the image. Most of the Collectors on view in this exhibition were created by Fort Collins seventh graders, adults at Petrichor Collective, members of the Air Quality Monitoring Advisory Committee, and resident families at a manufactured home park in the Boulder area, all of whom worked with Abeles as part of “Air Quality Through the Arts,” a local project designed to educate the public about particle pollution and its effects.  

Other artworks from Abeles’s oeuvre are on view alongside these community-made Smog Collectors and speak to the environment, civic engagement, and science literacy. Also included are scientific tools used to measure air quality, on loan from Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science and CSU’s Powerhouse Energy Campus.

Location: The Griffin Foundation Gallery