First Breath For Our Future Ancestor

This is a fundraiser run by the Ella Roberta Foundation to help create a sculpture for the London Borough of Lewisham. The sculpture aims to make the invisible killer, air pollution, visible. It will help raise awareness of the dangers of air pollution, and start conversations about one of the most important issues facing our community.

Ella Roberta was born and lived in Lewisham for the duration of her short life. She was nine years old when she died suddenly on 15 February 2013, of a fatal asthma attack. The pathologist who examined her said she had one of the worst cases ever recorded in the UK. On December 16th 2020, after a second inquest into her death, the Coroner concluded that her asthma had started due to the air pollution on the South Circular. Ella Roberta is the first person in the world to have air pollution on her death certificate. 

The sculpture of Ella will be set in a field of wild meadow flowers, bringing some biodiversity back to the city, helping to sequester some pollution from the local roads, and create a space for quiet contemplation.

Made from a naturally occurring ceramic, called NOXTEKTM, Jasmine has spent the last five years pioneering this innovative material. It is specially mixed for the artist and hardens to a stone-like texture. It is inert and insulating, but most importantly, can absorb 15% by weight of nitrogen dioxide (NOx ) pollution i.e. a 3kg sculpture can clean an average-sized room for 60 years.

*‘Breathe’ installed 2021 above Camden People’s Theatre in Euston, one of the most polluted roads in the country. Image courtesy of Jeff Moores and Gillian Jason Gallery.

 

£15,000 raised of £15,000 goal

£2,785 raised of £40,000 goal

 Artist Biography

Jasmine Pradissitto is an award-winning London-based British artist, academic, scientist, speaker and environmentalist who has a PhD in physics from UCL on the quantum behaviour of silicon in fibre optics and has studied art at Goldsmith’s and London Met. Pradissitto has exhibited worldwide, including most recently two public art projects for the Horniman Museum in London (DEFRA AWARD 2020) and the Camden People’s Theatre for Euston Town Green Bid, a Mayor of London environmental initiative.

www.pradissitto.com

inst: jasmine_pradissitto

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasmine_Pradissitto