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Nov

All the Tyres in Iceland on show at NDSM, Amsterdam

All the Tyres from Iceland: NDSM, Amsterdam

22 September – 24 November 2025

All the Tyres from Iceland is a sculptural project by Michael Pinsky that has transformed discarded tyres—imported from Iceland to the Port of Amsterdam for recycling—into monumental site-specific installations. By temporarily diverting tyres from GRANUBAND’s recycling process, the work reimagines these objects of negative value as striking forms that evoke both minimalist art and the vast infrastructures of global trade. In doing so, the project highlights the paradoxes of circular economies, where waste becomes resource, and invites reflection on the systems, logistics, and values that shape our relationship with what we discard. This project is part of the european Starts4Water programme and is hosted by WAAG futurelab and the Port of Amsterdam.

https://www.ndsm.nl/en/agenda/waag

Nov

Pollution Pods at the International Cervantino Festival

Pollution Pods: Festival Internacional Cervantino

Following shows this year in Cartagena, Colombia, at the World Health Organisation’s Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health, Barakaldo Bilbao and at BBK Klima in Urdaibai, the Pollution Pods will next travel to Mexico for the British Council’s showcase of UK arts at the Festival Internacional Cervantino. The UK is the Guest Country of Honour at this year’s festival, one of Latin America’s largest cultural events, running from 10–26 October.

https://festivalcervantino.gob.mx/actividad/1301/pollution-pods

Jun

Place Lalla Yeddouna shortlisted for Aga Khan Award for Architecture

#PlaceLallaYeddouna has been shortlisted for the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture. This stunning new addition to the Fez medina, designed by @mossessian_architecture, seamlessly blends with its historic surroundings while celebrating local materials and craftsmanship

I designed the tiles for the seven courtyards—crafted from locally made tiles, using only the traditional Fez colour palette. The hues of the sky fold into the space through simple geometric patterns, gradually evolving into classic #zellige motifs.

Mar

Pollution Pods showing at WHO’s 2nd Global Conference on Air Pollution

Pollution Pods Take Centre Stage at WHO Global Conference in Cartagena

Visitors to the WHO Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health in Cartagena are being offered a unique and visceral experience of the world’s most pressing environmental crisis—air pollution. The Pollution Pods, created by artist Michael Pinsky, have been installed at the event, allowing delegates and attendees to physically step into the air quality of different global environments.

Each pod simulates pollution from distinct sources including transport, industry, agriculture, energy, and domestic activity, offering a powerful, multisensory insight into the invisible threats surrounding us. The installation highlights not only the differences between urban airscapes across the globe but also the shared urgency to act on climate and public health.

Supported by the World Health Organization, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, and the University of East London, the Pollution Pods serve as a compelling call to action. As policymakers, scientists, and health professionals gather to address air quality challenges, the pods underscore the lived reality behind the data.

For many, it’s not just statistics in a report—it’s in the air they breathe.

Jun

Making A Stand

MAKING A STAND

15th of June 2023

LEEDS – YORKSHIRE, UK: Today (Thursday 15th June) commuters and visitors arriving into Leeds city centre have been greeted by an extraordinary sight. A remarkable sculptural ‘forest’ has taken root in the main public square outside Leeds railway station.

Comprising 127 seven-metre-high timber fins, this quietly powerful temporary installation entitled ‘Making A Stand’, aims to ‘disrupt’ the popular pedestrian route by creating an awe-inspiring artwork using commercially grown timber ‘borrowed’ from the construction supply chain, which can be repurposed when the work is dismantled at the end of the year.

Amidst the ongoing discourse surrounding climate protests and their impact on everyday lives, ‘Making A Stand’ is a thought-provoking artistic intervention that invites people to pause, explore and contemplate major environmental issues in a visually striking and provocative manner.

The installation is co-created by acclaimed visual artist Michael Pinsky (whose work is known for challenging the status quo on climate change and urban design), and award-winning environmental architects Studio Bark. It is one of 12 signature projects commissioned as part of LEEDS 2023’s transformational Year of Culture, and is inspired by the city’s origins as a forested area called Leodis over a thousand years ago, which gave rise to the name ‘Leeds’.

The co-creators of ‘Making A Stand’ aim to draw attention to the urgent need for the built environment industry to replace carbon-intensive materials like concrete and steel with more sustainable alternatives, such as timber. The project aims to ignite a conversation surrounding material life cycles and to demonstrate that large-scale, temporary art can also be created in a sustainable way.

The timber fins, which have been ‘borrowed’ from the supply chain at the point between felling and stacking, are positioned vertically making them quite literally ‘stand up’ like a ‘stand’[1] of trees in nature. The fins work together with a webbed canopy of steel wire ropes and steel struts, acting in tension and compression to ensure minimal damage to the wood so that it can be repurposed at the end of the year, minimizing waste while maximising opportunities for carbon capture and storage.

The project uses timber felled from sustainable forests in the UK where wood is grown for use in construction. Sliced into ‘fins’ by Whitney Sawmills in Herefordshire, the final stages of fabrication took place at Stage One, a specialist fabricator based near York.

Oct

The Final Bid

30.10.2022 – 26.02.2023

Draiflessen Collection

Georgstr. 18
49497 Mettingen, Germany

Opening Hours

Wednesday – Sunday
from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The first Thursday every month
from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Closed Monday and Tuesday

The Final Bid questions the ease in which we can purchase new objects whilst perfectly useable objects lie unwanted in people’s homes. Using the Draiflessen Collection as a hub for an on-lines auction, chairs will be bought and sold, creating constantly evolving meanwhile sculptures. The installation, conflating the commercial with the cultural, will encourage people to circulate objects they no longer need, promoting an economy of reuse.

The chairs rest on the ground until the opening of the exhibition. Once open, the sale begins, and the chair’s height rise as the value of the bids increase.

The sculptural presence within the gallery only represents an interruption in the re-use journey. These chairs have existed in people’s houses and they will find a new home somewhere else; the aesthetic moment is created by harnessing the byproduct of this process. In effect, the exhibition is created by borrowing assets from the community in exchange for offering a service.

The Final Bid functions in the town, in the museum and on-line. It requires people to participate in the process. Those engaging on-line will be presented with webcam view of the gallery space. As they bid, they will be able to see the height of their chosen object change accordingly. Participants can also bid in the gallery, to experience the re-configuration of the objects in real space and in real time.

The Final Bid, plays with the idea of collecting artifacts and the value they gain when placed within a museum context. Whilst some of the chairs may have significant sentimental value, they generally have a low commercial value. Following the traditions of the ready-made, they are, for a moment, displaced from their functional use, becoming a sculpture to be viewed rather than furniture to be sat on. However, they will return to their former use once purchased, as if Duchamp’s urinal was to be fitted back into a public lavatory.

Sep

Natural Cycle

Roadsworth

Natural Cycle

Roadsworth

As part of our new arts strategy X Marks the Spot for King’s Cross we have invited Roadsworth to create a mini-city with streets, pavements and crossings, combining natural elements which can been seen in Camley Street Nature Park.

Here, children of all ages can learn how to be a confident cyclist in a safe environment. Habits learnt at young age tend to stay with us for life. If a child then chooses to use the bike not the car as their primary mode of transport the carbon savings over their lifetime can be huge.

Just over twenty years ago, street artist Peter Gibson aka Roadsworth began taking to the streets of Montreal in the early mornings, spray-painting cyclist symbols on roads to protest the lack of bike lanes and paths in the city. As the number of Roadsworth’s arrest warrants mounted, his controversial street images turned the pavement into politics rekindling the debate about the nature of public art. After narrowly evading the Canadian penal system, Roadsworth went on to use his particular quirky and humorous approach to street design across the world, working with Cirque du Soleil, Tour de France and Banksy’s Can’s Festival. His approach of blending art and activism can be seen in his collaborations with organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International.

X Marks the Spot is a five year are programme curated by Clare Philips and Michael Pinsky
Natural Cycle is located in Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross N1
Natural Cycle is open daily and will be in-situ until October 15th 2022

Jan

Up In The Air – KunstMuseum Bonn

UP IN THE AIR

24.02.2022 – 19.06.2022

KUNSTMUSEUM
BONN

Air has an existential significance for all forms of life in the world. It is everywhere, albeit invisible and evanescent; it is literally impalpable. While until now in everyday life we have taken air for granted, in current political and social discourses air appears as a central element: during the corona crisis, we wear face masks to protect others from the air we breathe out, scientists are investigating the role of aerosols in the transmission of the Covid-19 virus, and climate activists fight for clean air and hence against climate change.

The depiction of air has been one of the artistic challenges at least since the Renaissance. Painting in particular has taken on this task. As a material, however, air is a relatively recent phenomenon in art. The artists of Modernism strived for the artistic appropriation of the world as well as its dissolution and transformation. It therefore only seems logical that they regarded air not only as an idea, but also as a material. Air was no longer depicted merely as wind, clouds, fog, steam, smoke, or breath, but has been deliberately used as a material. Thus it has been both a medium of expression as well as a subject in the visual, applied and performing arts since then.

The exhibition focuses on air as an artistic material and as a carrier of forms and ideas in the visual arts. The works on display, just like the material they all share, are sometimes expansive, sometimes minimal or even invisible, solid as well as ephemeral, they are located indoors as well as outdoors. The art works storm, whisper, blow, evaporate, breathe, and float.

With works by Nina Canell & Robin Watkins, Charlotte Charbonnel, Judy Chicago, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, Andreas Gefeller, Stefani Glauber, Hans Hemmert, Edith Kollath, Lang/Baumann, Piero Manzoni, Lyoudmila Milanova & Steffi Lindner, Yoko Ono, Otto Piene, Michael Pinsky , Arcangelo Sassolino, Rikuo Ueda, Ulay/Marina Abramović, Timm Ulrichs, Andy Warhol, Martin Werthmann

Oct

Pollution Drift

#POLLUTION DRIFT

16th Oct – 2nd Nov 2021

Pollution Pods journey to COP26

This October, Pollution Pods by the artist Michael Pinsky will travel to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) to bring home the health impact of air pollution and the climate crisis.

Air pollution kills an estimated 7 million people globally each year. The pods will allow visitors to experience some of the worst quality air on the planet, and understand why action on air pollution is urgently needed.

The five pods will start in Granary Square, London, then disperse and drift north. Lone pods will touch down in Birmingham, Sheffield, Lancaster and Newcastle. They will reunite as a family in Glasgow on the eve of COP26, with a call for world leaders to make air pollution an explicit priority in climate action and sustainable development activities.

The Pollution Pods are a series of geodesic domes whose air quality, smell and temperature accurately recreate the pollution of five different locations on three continents: London, Beijing, São Paulo, New Delhi and Tautra, a remote peninsula in Norway. Pinsky created the pods in 2017 to test whether art can change people’s perceptions of, and actions around, climate change. Now they face their greatest challenge yet – to shift the debate on air pollution and climate change to help secure real change at COP26.

The pods will be accompanied by Ride for their Lives – staff from six UK children’s hospitals who are cycling 800km from London to Glasgow to deliver messages from the international health community including the Healthy Climate Prescription Letter, signed by 450 medical organisations across the globe.

Full details about the tour here.

Oct

Landmark – SkyArts

HOOD is featured on SkyArts new series called Landmark. Episode 6. Other artists featured in this episode are Annie Catrell and Kevin Callaghan. Available on Freeview Channel 11. Judged by Clare Lilley and Hetan Patel. View link here.

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BLOG

All the Tyres in Iceland on show at NDSM, Amsterdam

Pollution Pods at the International Cervantino Festival

Place Lalla Yeddouna shortlisted for Aga Khan Award for Architecture

Pollution Pods showing at WHO’s 2nd Global Conference on Air Pollution