This Guy Collected Beijing’s Smog And Made It Into A Brick

This Chinese artist took is upon himself to help the world understand just how polluted Beijing’s air has truly become. So in order to visualize the problem, he collected the air pollution with a vacuum and then formed a brick with is. Pretty gross, right?

h/t: theguardian

Chinese artist Wang Renzheng, known by his artist name as Jianguo Xiongdi, or “Nut Brother”, created the brick over a period of 100 days. During that time, he walked around with a vacuum and held the hose to the air. At the end of his collection period, Wang had over 100 grams of dust and smog on his hands.

“I want to show this absurdity to more people,” Wang said of his anti-smog campaign. “It’s not healthy. You have nowhere to hide. It is in the air all around us.”

Wang’s brick is a horrifying visualization of what so many Beijing residents are forced to deal with on a day to day basis.

And though Wang’s brick project means that China’s air has 100 grams less pollution then when he started, obviously one man with one vacuum isn’t powerful enough to solve the problem..

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