Conceived in two parts Air Ways Pat Toh offers visually arresting motifs that force us to re-evaluate our relationship to the environment. Created in the weeks leading up to the UN Climate Summit in November 2021, this work poignantly addresses the effects of climate change on both life and the ecosystem life is a part of. At the same time, amidst the backdrop of the coronavirus, Pat’s work could also be holding up a mirror to a microcosm and its dystopic aftermath of viral intrusions.

Air Ways began as an investigation of air and how pollutants adulterate the mechanisms of the breathing. This includes explorations of the human respiratory tract, assisting breathing machinery and even fogs that capture hanging pollution. However, filming air needed a complementing medium to give visibility to the intangible and invisible state. This is an inherent issue, where often times it is difficult to understand our own breathing without the hindering mucus or phlegm. As such, using the element of water and lighting conditions was important for capturing the bubbling quality of air. Apparatus like pumps, often used in fish tanks, and the visceral image of lungs could again potentially call attention to air.

The bulk of the artistic process entailed notions of translations. Pat had begun with a poetically written script that directly addressed air pollution. The first step of translation, could be seen in the way the framing and shots were carefully designed to offer a visual poetry of the written words. Once that was done, there were discussions on how the text could be used as soundscape for the moving images without narrativizing what one was seeing. In keeping to the investigation of air traveling through the respiratory tract, Pat recorded sections from the text while manipulating the duration and amount of breath that could be used for each articulation. In this manner, the soundscape served to create an audio mapping of the breath exploration.