French Expat In Gurgaon Fights Pollution In Delhi With Photo Campaign

A French woman residing in Gurgaon has started going around town, taking photo portraits of common Delhiites, making them pose with masks and X-ray films of a pair of lungs.

Concerns over the Capital's toxic air have now made their way into Delhi's art and popular culture. Interestingly, a French woman residing in Gurgaon has started going around town, taking photo portraits of common Delhiites, making them pose with masks and X-ray films of a pair of lungs. Over 50 such portraits she has created feature: bicycle-mounted milkmen, domestic maids, schoolgoing boys, pregnant women and elderly persons. They stand against varied backgrounds like traffic on the highway, construction sites and trash dumps. All are seen wearing protective face masks and holding the X-ray films against their chest.

Lenswoman Melanie Dornier says this 'Humans of New York-esque' photo campaign reflects the ill-effects of air pollution and that "it makes no distinction between a corporate honcho and a villager" or "the middle-class, poor and rich".

Melanie, who comes from Besançon, a picturesque town in eastern France, is a professional photographer. She has widely published in The Sunday Times magazine (UK), Geo Ado (France), Le Monde Histoire (France) etc. The resident of DLF Phase V, Gurgaon, told Mail Today: "It was in September last year when I was approached for this photo shoot. My neighbour Namita Gupta, founder of a company called Airveda, asked me to take some pictures for educational and awareness purposes on Delhi's air pollution."

Namita of Airveda, which manufactures air quality monitors, says: "While scientific data aggregation on air quality in Delhi and NCR is critical, we also need human narratives like this. One can understand this as the pictorial warnings on cigarette packs. Everyone knows that smoking nicotine is bad, but till the time you show them a grotesque alarming visual, nobody gets the hang of it."

Melanie says, like many expats, she could have moved out of the Delhi-Gurgaon area. "My husband and I arrived here in August 2013. Having lived in countryside France and knowing what clean air is like, we could have caught the first flight out. However, I love photographing Asia and its facets too much. At the same time, my two daughters, aged 2 and 3 each, are growing up here. I had to do something to give them a bright future and clean environment," she said.

More artworks on Delhi's air pollution are coming up. A Spanish artist from the city, Lucas Munoz, is showcasing a public art project called 'Delhi Lung.' It shows a white muslin cloth that resembles human lungs and was installed at 'Publica' art gallery at Bikaner for 30 days. The experiment is to see what it looks like after surviving a month in Delhi's polluted air. "It will be like an imprint," Lucas was quoted as saying by the website careforair.org. The piece will now tour to Habitat, then Emporio, and finally, Instituto Cervantes.

A similar art installation, featuring a mannequin with a mask, and cars on his body, created by artist Shahid Parvez, was also seen at the India Art Fair, careforair.org said.

Baishali Adak