Topologies of Air: Shona Illingworth’s Art Practice and the Ethics of Air

In her video and sound art practice, artist Shona Illingworth has extensively engaged with atmospheric environments as they are experienced physically and affectively. In the a multi-screen and sound installation, Topologies of Air (2021), Illingworth addresses the conditions and discourses that define today’s perception and understandings of airspaces. This article closely examines Topologies of Air and further relates it to Illingworth’s art research practice, outlining key features and methodologies to argue that Illingworth’s decentralised approach to airspaces is rooted in an ethics of air that fosters empathic understanding. This is congruent with the aim of proposing a new human right on the freedom to live without threats from above put forward through the Airspace Tribunal, an integral component of Illingworth’s project that she has developed in collaboration with human right expert, Nick Grief.