For 100 days an avant garde artist rolled a running shop vacuum through Beijing’s smog shrouded streets, ending up with a brick of solidified air pollution.
You know the smog in Beijing, China is bad when the government issues a “Red Alert”, forcing schools to close and factories to shut down. Just in case someone in this otherwise world class city of over 21,000,000 people isn’t getting the message, however, an avant garde artist who calls himself “Nut Brother” launched a project to raise the public’s level of environmental awareness.
Dubbed “Dust Plan”, the project ran from July 24th through November 29th, 2015, and in itself was a relatively uncomplicated affair: Nut Brother rolled a running industrial vacuum along Beijing’s streets, avenues and even highways every day for 100 straight days. Once a day, Nut Brother would ask a passerby to snap his photo, which he then posted to his online Weibo website.
Nut Brother didn’t employ his vacuum in the traditional manner; instead he held the head high off the ground since his purpose was to suck dust out of the air and not off the ground. You’ll note the vacuum is cordless (obviously)… designed to clean up spills in remote locations, the battery-powered vac boasts 1,000 watts of power and can run for up to four days after being fully charged. Put into perspective, Nut Brother’s vacuum sucks up as much air as 62 people can breath in daily.