A tableware made with air pollution,
would you eat from it?

In many places around the world, air quality is very poor. Even when we don’t notice it, we still inhale soot, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. To increase awareness of these human-made toxic elements in the air, designers Iris de Kievith and Annemarie Piscaer created Smogware. They found a procedure to harvest large amounts of fine dust and use it to glaze ceramic coffee cups and breakfast plates. This way, Smogware relates the intimacy of your morning routine to the unconscious act of breathing. The colour and texture of the glaze is determined by the amount of particulate matter it contains, serving as a visible and tangible indication of the air pollution in any specific place.

As part of the Smogware project, you can participate in harvesting the dust. This “participative urban mining” is especially suitable for cities, at home or abroad, where air quality must be brought to the attention. After all, the wind blows the dust everywhere.