In February 2026, I traveled to India to meet members of the Pugai Padam Collective in Chennai; they are an amazing group of artists, actors, and volunteers who create work about the environment. For five days during the trip, I created a Smog Collector on paper, placing it on the windowsills of my hotel rooms in Chennai and Delhi to collect airborne particulate matter.
One of the Pugai Padam volunteers, Alibasha, guided me from Chennai to Ennore to see the numerous power plants and fertilizer factories. The collective has a history of bringing attention to this region where industrial fly ash damages the waterways and severely pollutes the air.
When I returned to Los Angeles from the trip, my first impression was that our air seemed unusually crystalline. I’m forever reminded however that despite improvements provided by our emission standards and efforts, the air in Los Angeles differs from neighborhood to neighborhood. Do you live next to a freeway or factory? And what is the direction of the air flow? Are you protected by tree shade?
Then on June 17, 2026, the Lineage Fire blazed in Boyle Heights. Some of the images you see here are Smog Collectors placed on the roof of my studio in Lincoln Heights from June 21-25. I’m not an ambulance chaser but I was haunted by the similarities between Ennore, Chennai, Boyle Heights, and Los Angeles.
The images interchange. The tear-drop shape is cut into paper and filled with fly ash from Ennore. And Lineage scorched hot tears made of smoke and ash. The Kolam pattern is traditionally drawn by hand using rice flour and created each morning at the entrances of homes. Its purpose is to bring forth positive energy and to keep insects at bay. The pattern on the apron, however, is made of particulate from the air in Chennai, and on the dinner plate, duplicated with smog and ash from the Lineage Fire.