As part of COP26, an awareness raising art installation highlighting the impact of air pollution on health was hosted on the campus of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde’s (NHSGGC) Gartnavel Hospitals.

The Pollution Pods, by artist Michael Pinsky, is a series of geodesic domes whose air quality, smell and temperature safely and accurately recreate the pollution of five different locations on three continents: London, Beijing, São Paulo, New Delhi and Tautra, a remote peninsula in Norway.

Michael Pinsky created the pods in 2017 to test whether art can change people’s perceptions of, and actions around, climate change.

Jackie Sands, Improvement Senior, Arts and Health, NHSGGC said: “This is such a great example of an artist engaging with the global climate emergency. Using an art installation to explain what is happening in environments around the world gives people the opportunity to actually engage with how our senses and health are impacted by higher levels of pollution. 

“Art can be many things but most powerful when it encourages people to question, act and engage, this project does just that. We’re very pleased to be able to house the Pollution Pods at Gartnavel Royal during COP26.”

The Pods, which were open to the public until Friday, 12 November, also played a key role in welcoming health professionals who cycled from London to Glasgow, to highlight the impact of air pollution on health, ahead of COP26 on Sunday, October 31, as part of the ‘Ride for their Lives’ campaign.

Fiona Sinclair, Voluntary Services Manager, Mental Health Services, Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP), is based at Gartnavel Royal. Fiona organised a team of volunteers to help with the installation. Fiona said: “Visits to The Pods were facilitated thanks to volunteers from Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity, NHSGGC Voluntary Services, Common Wheel and the MSc Students of Glasgow Caledonian University.

“Over 1,500 visitors from Minnesota to Manchester and Glasgow to Genoa attended the installation during COP26 and included our hospital staff, neighbours, local schools and nursery, academics and a former Senator from North America. A total number of 156 children and young people visited from Broomhill Primary, Notre Dame Primary, Kelvinside Academy and our local partners Westbourne Gardens Nursery School.”

Gemma Kitson, Greenspace and Urban Realm Officer from NHSGGC said: “The Pods were a great way to get people out and about, and to highlight the great resource that our greenspaces provide. There was such a contrast between the polluted air inside the pods and the leafy surroundings at Gartnavel. To me, this highlighted why we have to protect and enhance our greenspaces as much as possible. As well as storing carbon, our trees and greenspaces also provide breathing spaces for so many of us, and time spent outdoors in high quality greenspaces has a positive effect on mental and physical wellbeing, which is more important now than ever.”

COP26 delegate Elaine Ashley from Bristol, UK visited and said: “This was definitely the best event I’ve been to this week during COP26. It’s so important to have the experience to help understand; it brings home the inequalities of the impacts of climate change.”

Patients from Gartnavel Royal Hospital Acute Mental Health Services visited and commented: “The event makes COP26 feel closer, part of my life and of all of us here. It didn’t mean much before walking through The Pods.”

Colin McCormack, Head of Adult Services for our HSCP’s North West Locality said: “The Pods were fantastic – I think Michael Pinsky has created an astounding work.  I’m really proud we could host them at Gartnavel Royal, and my sincere thanks to Fiona and the volunteers who staffed them throughout COP 26 and guided the many visitors through them.  An education and a wake-up call for us all.”