DUSTS WALKS
ARCHIVE
AIR ATLAS
JOURNAL
DUSTS KEEPERS
ON DUSTS
DUSTS CATCHERS
DUSTS SENSOR
DUSTS WALKS
ARCHIVE
AIR ATLAS
JOURNAL
DUSTS KEEPERS
ON DUSTS
DUSTS CATCHERS
DUSTS SENSOR
SEMBRAR AIRE
We are an interdisciplinary
initiative committed to enhancing livable conditions
for human and more-than-human life in urban environments
for human and more-than-human life in urban environments
ABOUT
We are at the beginning of this journey, and we invite you to seed air with us.
How to seed air?
By sharing and nurturing breathable spaces.
Alongside convening researchers, practitioners, and community actors, the project’s website serves as a platform for artists and interdisciplinary researchers working on the atmosphere and the urban environment. Additionally, the website functions as an archive and distributes open-access tools and DIY practices for citizen science.
By staying in plurality.
SEMBRAR AIRE brings together NGOs, grassroots associations, artists, and interdisciplinary practitioners whose work inspires, holds desire and passion for shared life and co-creation.
Through the exchange of resources, knowledge and strategies, we create space for local complexities while finding solutions that can be implemented worldwide. Like sand composed of valuable minerals that travel each year from the Sahara to fertilize the Amazon rainforest, we begin small so our actions can travel further, last and multiply.
Particles are longing to be in relation.
Dust never travels alone.
By listening to the intelligences around us.
Policy follows culture, and culture is shaped by stories. Our stories emerge from our experiences and assumptions about the world around us. We invite a shift in narrative: from viewing nature as a service provider for human needs, and toward recognizing it as the living force that sustains all life.
SEMBRAR AIRE is committed to restoryation*
Rather than distribute paralysing or shame-based narratives, we create and share empowering pathways for engagement and care. Dusts, often dismissed as nuisance or waste, hold multitudes of life—no less complex than our own human bodies. By changing how we speak about air, particles, and urban ecologies, we change how we act.
**Robin Wall Kimmerer; story + restoration
SEMBRAR AIRE is dedicated to Carlos Machado, who tirelessly nurtures and plants mangrove trees in Isla Grande, Colombia. His commitment to giving back what nature provides—breathable air, clean water, and a thriving ecosystem—inspired our foundation.
SEMBRAR AIRE began during the Cité internationale des arts residency program In situ 2025-2026 in Paris, supported by the Carasso Foundation.
Founded by Beatrice Zaidenberg
In collaboration with Adam Hudec
SEMBRAR AIRE is part of the Dusts Institute. Since 2021, the Dusts Institute has explored the urban environment by turning invisible actors (airborne particles, microorganisms and ruderals)
into protagonists.
Through interactive installations, public walks, art and architecture projects, the Dusts Institute engages diverse audiences and inspires action to address current environemntal crises.
ACTIVITIES
Since 2021, our goal has been to change the perception of dusts from nuisance to valuable matter for understanding and engaging with the urban environment. In public walks, we collect stories about the origins of dusts and materialise those around us with the help of the Dusts Catchers.
We welcome opportunities for collaboration! Invite us to host DUSTS WALKS near you.
Together with the architecture student association
CESCA, Universidad de los Andes
Photo: CESCA
Together with the architecture student association
CESCA, Universidad del Valle
Photo: CESCA
Part of the WHO Conference on Air Pollution
Three guided tours with communities working on air quality, urban ecology, sustainable fishery, and Afro-Colombian women's rights, among others.
Photo: Juan Esteban Reyes
Part of the Suratomica Festival
Photo: Suratomica
In the garden of the Museum Bellpark
Photo: Juan Esteban Reyes
In collaboration with top-ev and Pragovka for Art
Photo: top-ev
various Dusts Catchers that represent unique fingerprints of breathable air. With each new Dusts Catcher, Air Atlas continues to grow.
Do you have a Dust Catcher?
If so, send it to us, and it will be added to the map.
EPIDERMITECTURE
What happens when we question what the outside of a building needs to look like and why? And how might this deepen our understanding of what grows on the surface?
This essay examines the microbial layer on architectural facades to address the influences of our interaction with and perception of the urban environment.
Read full article here
Photo: Adam Hudec
ECOTONES - PARIS
Read full article here
Photo: Beatrice Zaidenberg
NETWORK
We meet once every two months to discuss upcoming projects, possible collaboration and funding applications.
JOIN
Artists from various fields have the opportunity to share their ideas and work related to air quality, the atmosphere, particulate matter, and the urban environment.