Malavika A B, Tanmay Bhavsar, Harihar Prashad R, Lalrotluanga L, and Neha Mandlik
This systems-based design exhibit investigates urban dust as an invisible yet structurally significant environmental and social crisis in Indian cities. The project reframes dust not as a minor urban inconvenience but as a systemic public health issue deeply embedded within infrastructure, governance, labour systems and socio-economic inequality. While air pollution discourse in India often focuses on vehicular emissions and industrial smoke, urban dust remains comparatively under-acknowledged despite its substantial contribution to PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations. The exhibit therefore aims to render visible a phenomenon that is simultaneously omnipresent and socially normalised.
The conceptual foundation of the project arises from the observation that dust becomes politically invisible due to its everyday familiarity. The statement, “Dust is ubiquitous, therefore unremarkable; unremarkable, therefore ungoverned,” operates as a central theoretical lens guiding the exhibit. This framing positions dust as both a material condition and a symptom of fragmented urban governance. The work is informed by systems thinking approaches and giga-mapping methodologies developed by Birger Sevaldson (2011), which emphasise the representation of complexity through interconnected visual structures. It also draws from wicked problem theory, which suggests that urban-environmental challenges cannot be resolved through isolated interventions but require systemic understanding (Buchanan, 1992).
Keywords: urban dust, particulate matter, public health, environmental justice, urban governance, systems mapping
