These works explore the invisible forces, air, data, breath, belief, that connect each of us to global systems and distant environments. Breathe turns something as everyday as breathing into a powerful act of awareness, revealing how the air around us carries traces of distant wildfires, glaciers, and forests, tracked and visualized through real-time scientific data. Twin Cloud transforms climate data into dynamic digital sculptures, where clouds become reflections of human activity, shifting in shape and mood with pollution and environmental impact. Apocalyptic Optimists offers a visual manifesto of hope and responsibility, using activist-inspired flags to call for a future grounded in care, collaboration, and empathy for all forms of life. Together, these works ask us to move beyond seeing ourselves as separate from nature and instead recognize our deep entanglement with the planet and all who share it.

BREATHE proposes a questioning of human belief systems and definitions of the non-human through the medium of air. It confronts the public with arranged facts and seeks out the dissonances with their own understanding of climate and the ‘environment.’ Just as the air serves as a conduit linking human lives and distant lands, hidden industrial landscapes are also physically linked to us – as proximate as they are distant, and as public as they are secret. The individual integrates into the collective mass of the atmosphere, within a particular moment and place. The concept of absolute independence is revealed as an illusion: everything is conditional on everything else.

This mixture of imagination and scientific data is fuelled by real-time calculations conducted by Dr. Michael Sprenger and Dr. Hanna Joos at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, led by Prof. Dr. Heini Wernli. Learn more about the science here. The results of these calculations, delineating the air’s journey, complete with city names and timestamps – are projected onto multiple facades across the globe. The scrolling text, reminiscent of stock tickers cascading across Wall Street skyscrapers, echoes the ambiance of high-stakes trading. Air, clouds, and water are suggested as potential new commodities in a world driven by trade. Along the cities and timestamps, excerpts from conversations with scientists, poems, and other material collected and created during the calculation processes are projected.

Participants come to understand that the air they breathe has recently passed through Canada’s burning forests, Greenland’s glaciers, or the Amazon Rainforest a mere two weeks prior. Transforming breathing into a conscious act, challenging human notions of reality and perception, and turning surrounding into incorporating.

Scientific background of the project: https://khalilberro.com/breathe-research

<Twin Cloud> is a climate data-driven generative art collection,  as well as an art IP focused on sustainability that links crypto art to green practices. Chemicals produced by mountain fires, car exhaust, and industrial production travel far distances in the air, reflecting ground activities. The project has gathered meteorological data worldwide from the Copernicus Ecological Satellite, creating the climate identity of 300 cities worldwide through its digital sculptures. The datasets include greenhouse gasses, aerosol pollutants, humidity, temperature, location, and etc, which all affect the shape, movement, color, and texture of the digital cloud. With the accumulation of chemicals, a soft and sparse cloud may change into a chaotic and violent one.

Apocalyptic Optimists: A Manifesto for More Than Human Futures originated from the research project “Designing for More Than Human Futures” (2021-2022) by Juliana Schneider. The project  aims to raise awareness, provoke rethinking, and inspire action toward creating a world that transcends human-centered realities. In this context, design becomes a powerful tool for activism, a medium for advocacy, paving the way for societal change.

The manifesto  invites us to question our assumptions and challenge the status quo. It encourages us to imagine different futures and to act in the present to make those futures a reality. The manifesto pushes us to radically imagine a world, life and society beyond the limitations of what is currently considered possible—not what is, but what could be.

Juliana Schneider brought this manifesto to life by designing a series of colorful and optimistic flags, capturing the activist essence of her work. 

Find more info here.