GMU:Re-enchanting the field/Kitman Yeung

Boundaries of Air and Displacement

Background:

Air in cities feels different depending on what raw materials they burn for energy—this was an observation noted by Michael Pinsky during his Pollution Pods project (Pinsky, n.d.). Estonia’s accession to the EU in 2004 regulated the air pollution from local power plant emissions. In order to stay below the now stricter standards, the Estonian oil shale power industry underwent a large reductive transformation, and many workers became unemployed. There are several groups of bodies affected. One group consists of the Russian miners who remained in Estonia and Kazakhstan after the end of the Soviet Union. Their employment opportunities are unpredictable, and they face constant indeterminacy. Their standing in society has dropped to second-class, and they feel they are treated as ‘waste’ (Kesküla, 2018). In lived effects, the largest buildings in Narva—which are the Eesti Power Plant and Balti Power Plant, are now also much emptier, so are the SOMPA abandoned housing blocks in the town of Kohtla-Järve, which we will visit. How will these embodied displacementes continue to play out for the workers in energy production in Ida-Viru, in response to Territorial Just Transition Plan (TJTP) , where objectives are se to cease electricity production from oil shale by 2035, to phase out oil shale in energy production by 2040 and to reach climate neutrality by 2050 ((European Commission, 2022).

Main objectives:

How do these ghostly/disused infrastructures come to terms with the idea of pollution or waste? I hypothesise that such economic consequences of the EU's accession have reshaped the Narva population and the local labour force. I want to investigate how oil shale creates air pollution that is, at first, a chemical waste, but can later have effects on the workers and residents, thereby transforming these bodies into emotional and political wastes.

How has the physicalised air pollution in Narva created displacements in the Estonian/Russian residents? And how do we follow this migration, in reference to the long history of the changing Narva demographics? A large archive and documentation regarding the local workforce already exists. Therefore, I want to propose a lens of visualising and speculating on these displaced bodies and real estate, in relation to the statistics and qualities of air in Narva. These displaced bodies are not ecological migrants; rather, they are political migrants, a consequence of Estonia’s choice to be accepted into the ‘air’ of the EU.

How does the new generation of residents react to the “wasteland aesthetics” of the past Baltic industrial cities (Printsmann, Sepp, & Luud, 2012)? To study our ‘ghosts’ of the modern anthropos, how ghosts of oil shale over-extraction exist in the forms of rusting rooms and the breathed air. These ghosts disturbed certain families and habitations in traceable ways (Tsing et al., 2017). The abandoned and underused industrial sites are representative of Narva’s changing economy. Notions of decay, disuse, and regeneration will be in focus during the technical observations on site.

I anticipate an outcome of a multimedia library of different sensorial observations collected from this research, represented in a digital/physical publication or webpage.

Technical description: tools, method, process

Possible fieldwork methods include observational journaling, photographic documentation, and collection of air and soil samples to study their temperature, humidity, CO₂ levels, and other air particles (using a portable CO₂ sensor). Statistical methods for transforming the data in the air samples will be created in parallel with Narva’s existing demographic data, in simplified illustration.

I will also pay attention to building surfaces and soils for any resilient beings that grow in such conditions, searching for their ‘symbiotic assemblages.’ I will record other sound and smell elements at the sites of the housing blocks and former and current oil shale power plants in Narva.

locations:

- indoor conditioned spheres/shopping centres/museums of mining /within proximities of ash mountains

- outdoor 'daily' living spaces?

- ghost architecture areas

References

• Kesküla, E. (2018). Waste people or value producers? Contesting bioeconomic imaginaries of oil shale mining in Estonia. Journal of Baltic Studies, 49(4), 487–505. https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2018.1503624
• Michael Pinsky. (n.d.). Pollution Pods. https://www.michaelpinsky.com/portfolio/pollution-pods-2/
• Printsmann, A., Sepp, M., & Luud, A. (2012). The land of oil-shale: the image, protection, and future of mining landscape heritage. In Häyrynen, S., Turunen, R., & Nyman, J. (Eds.), Locality, Memory, Reconstruction: The Cultural Challenges and Possibilities of Former Single-Industry Communities (pp. 180–196). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
• Tsing, A. L., Swanson, H. A., Gan, E., & Bubandt, N. (Eds.). (2017). Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctt1qft070
• The Baltic Atlas. (2016). Baltic States Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale.
• European Commission. (2022, October 10). EU Cohesion Policy: €354 million for Estonia to phase out oil shale in energy production. https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/whats-new/newsroom/10-10-2022-eu-cohesion-policy-eur354-million-for-estonia-to-phase-out-oil-shale-in-energy-production_en

potential list of tools:

SDS011 PM precision sensor to arduino

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+connet+SDS011+to+arduino&oq=how+to+connet+SDS011+to+arduino&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgkIAhAhGAoYoAHSAQg1OTA1ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:576d4a5a,vid:lDyk67QEk0k,st:41

App	Temp & Humidity	Local Sensor	Free Version	Notes
MyObservatory	✅	❌ (uses nearby station)	✅	Great UI, public data
Clime	✅	❌	✅	NOAA radar, pretty interface
Weather Underground	✅	❌	✅	Community stations, detailed
Netatmo	✅	✅ (if device)	✅	Pair with own sensor

Compact, Affordable Devices (under ~€250)

🔸 Temtop M10 or M2000 Series

• Measures: PM2.5, PM10, CO₂, formaldehyde, temperature, humidity.
• Price: €100–€250
• Pros: Easy to use, reliable for field comparisons.
• Limitations: Lower-end models don’t include CO₂.

🔸 Aranet4 Home (for CO₂, Temp, RH)

• Measures: CO₂, temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure.
• Price: ~€250
• Pros: Bluetooth connectivity, long battery life, easy data export.
• Used by researchers for indoor/outdoor air studies.

🔸 Qingping Air Monitor Lite

• Measures: PM2.5, PM10, CO₂, temp, humidity.
• Price: ~€100–150
• Compact and App-connected (iOS/Android).

🔸 Atmotube Pro

• Measures: PM1, PM2.5, PM10, VOCs, CO₂, temp, humidity, barometric pressure.
• Price: ~€200
• Portable: clips onto your bag and logs data via smartphone app.
• Good for outdoor urban environments.

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📱 Free or Low-Cost Mobile Apps & Add-ons

These don’t replace physical sensors, but can help gather crowdsourced or modelled air quality data or link with external devices:

✅ AirVisual / IQAir App

• Shows real-time AQI, PM2.5, CO₂ from nearby stations.
• Does not measure directly, but useful for context.

✅ Plume Labs: Air Report

• Real-time AQI & pollution forecasts.
• Good for mapping air exposure during your walks.

✅ iPhone + external sensors (e.g., Flow 2 or Aranet4)

• Plug-and-play with Bluetooth.
• Can sync with Strava-style apps for geolocating pollution data.

1. Physical and Chemical Factors (Scientific/Environmental)

These are the measurable, often instrumental aspects:

• Pollutant types:
  • PM2.5 / PM10 (fine particulate matter)
  • CO₂ (carbon dioxide)
  • NO₂ (nitrogen dioxide)
  • SO₂ (sulfur dioxide)
  • O₃ (ozone)
  • VOCs (volatile organic compounds)
  • Lead, mercury, etc. (in some industrial contexts)
• Meteorological conditions:
  • Temperature
  • Humidity
  • Wind direction/speed
  • Atmospheric pressure
  • Inversions (which trap pollution near the surface)
• Temporal variations:
  • Time of day
  • Seasonal patterns
  • Long-term trends (post-regulation, post-industry, etc.)

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🗺️ 2. Spatial Factors (Where and How Pollution Moves)

• Source identification:
  • Local: factories, vehicles, stoves
  • Regional: agricultural burn-off, industrial zones
  • Transboundary: drifting pollution from neighboring countries
• Topography:
  • Valleys often trap air pollution
  • Elevation and land use influence dispersion
• Drift and accumulation:
  • How air travels across borders, oceans, or rural/urban divides

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⚖️ 3. Socio-Political and Economic Factors

• Environmental policy and regulation:
  • EU standards, WHO thresholds, national air quality laws
  • Enforcement gaps, loopholes, or selective monitoring
• Inequity of exposure:
  • Environmental racism/classism (who breathes dirtier air?)
  • Urban vs. rural or industrial vs. residential exposure
• Industrial history and economic transition:
  • What closed? What opened?
  • How has industry shaped the airscape (e.g. Narva)?
• Data transparency and opacity:
  • What is measured and shared (or hidden)?
  • Whose air is considered legitimate or monitored?

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👃 4. Sensory and Experiential Factors

• Smell, visibility, bodily perception:
  • Irritation, heaviness, temperature shifts, “dustiness”
• Cultural and symbolic meanings:
  • Clean vs. polluted
  • Air as life vs. air as weapon
• Atmospheric aesthetics:
  • How air and pollution shape a place’s look and feel