Smog Journeys

Jia Zhagnke is a filmmaker of the so-called ‘Sixth Generation’ of Chinese filmmakers, a wave of artists making internationally recognised works in the late 90s within a context of national censorship. This piece, commissioned by Greenpeace, visualises affects and experiences of smog in Beijing.

The short film starts with the familiar image of steam pouring out of a nuclear cooling tower. A cool, repetitive acoustic guitar is punctuated by sounds of coughing, and traffic. The attention turns its attention to the affect of smog upon those living their everyday lives in Beijing, watching films, playing sports, commuting either masked or unmasked.

Halfway through the short, we cut to a children’s choir. They sing about a bucolic scene of rowing a boat on a lake through a cool breeze. A child marks the pollution conditions of the day on the whiteboard. 2.5PM is at a rate of 210. In doing so, the film questions the normalisation of pollution as a known and unchallenged factor of urban existence.