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Politics of Breathing

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Breathing air is universal discuss this statement.

An essay film exploring the effect of air pollution on industrial communities, specifically the North East town, Middlesbrough, through my family experience. When considering the universitality of air it is important to ask the question “Is breathing political?”(1). Yes, because air is largely uncontrolled and frequently exploited at the expense of a workforce or minority. If air cannot be regulated or distributed evenly then it cannot be universal for all people are not given equal access. Universality of air is right to breathe without fear or without consequence so why are certain communities condemned as expendable.

The idea for this film stemmed out of an old Teeside folk song that my dad would sing me when I was young that he picked up on shift at ICI Wilton. Written by Ron Angel of the folk group, the Teeside fettlers, ‘The Chemical workers’ song encapsulates a workers relationship to the industry. The version I know comes from ‘Vin Gahbut and the younguns’ as it has been a staple around the North East folk clubs since the 1960s. The first verse my dad sings explains more than I ever could.

“Well, a Process Man am I and I'm tellin' you no lie

I work and breathe among the fumes that trail across the sky

There's thunder all around me and there's poison in the air

There's a lousy smell that smacks of hell and dust all in me hair

And it's go boys, go

They'll time your every breath

And every day you're in this place

You're two days nearer death

But you go” (2)

Middlesbrough has some of the worst health cases to do with air pollution in the UK.(3) With the highest admissions of children sent to hospital for asthma in all of the North East, it is not uncommon to have had family members with asbestosis or respiratory problems from either working in industrial environments or living very close to them.

In the politics of planning Francis Gladstone describes Middlesbrough with smoke. He quotes the mayor “The smoke, he went on, was an indication of prosperous times and high employment. ‘Therefore we are proud of our smoke.’“(4) this statement still stands, to many the loss of smoke and steam on the horizon marks the end of an era and signals a wide scale loss of jobs in a community that depends on them. However why is it that people must choose between a job and their health.

I wanted to explore this juxtaposition through my narration. Across the film I use a combination of singing, my dad’s own story and the information I have discovered when researching the project. Much of the research I deliver is some harrowing statistics as I introduce my argument. A large portion of preparation for this documentary was talking with my family and local people and referencing their concerns with statistics that were often hard to find. Much of the knowledge I acquired on the current situation came from a conversation I had with a local student marine biologist Ruby Miller who is protesting the marine life die off after studying with Dr Gary Caldwell at Newcastle university (5). This project wouldn’t exist without the strong protest of local people, willing to discover environmental facts that has been so well hidden for so many years.

The footage I have shot is taken in the South Gare between Redcar and Middlesbrough, this is an industrial dumping ground that has slowly been taken over by nature.There is plenty of industry in Middlesbrough to take videos of, however I wanted to show how beautiful and natural this area is too. South Gare is a frequented holiday spot for fishing families on their route to Redcar beach, it was long been characterised by the now lost cooling towers or plants that lined the horizon behind.

The filming is slow stills shot on a handheld video camera taken in April 2024. The topic is personal and the video is personal and I wanted the video style to reflect that. The camera I used was small scale with a hand held microphone and recorder. The whole event became a bit of a road trip with my dad and I planning out the points we would revisit. In between the video footage there is a series of photographs that I took from two years prior in the same location, in many of the same spots. Many of these flash up, lined up to show exactly were the industry stood only months before.

The violin score that runs underneath the whole of the piece is a composition I have made for the film. The audio parts of this film are as equally strong and as relevant as the visual parts and I wanted to have something to make them special. The composition is based entirely off of the chemical workers song used the same tuning and often chords. I used 4 tracks to layer and weave the different harmony parts together so that there would be continuous drones throughout. The fiddle as the chosen instrument reflects my childhood that was surrounded by community and folk music alongside that. The people who taught me to play worked in the same factory that is sung about in the song. The fiddle is a powerful instrument to the folk musician and reflex a history of social and political protest as shown in the chemical workers song.

The combination of the video footage, photography, aural history and tale of song come together to resemble my own knowledge of Middlesbrough and its modern history in relation to air pollution as a subject that only seems to be discussed by those who it directly effects. It was important to keep it as auditory information to me because that is how I received it. It is rare to find this research in a book. In the last year I have had one member of my family die of asbestosis and another has just been diagnosed. Many of these cases are ongoing and leave a lasting effect, longer than the legacy of ICI Wilton itself. It was important to me to create a film that discusses the lack of transparency from the plants, local and national legislators and the media so that air has more of a chance at being universal everywhere, not just to those who can afford it.

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Bibliography:

Gorska, M. (2018) Feminist politics of breathing, Atmospheres of Breathing edited by Lenart Škof and Petri Brendtson. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/36283661/Feminist_Politics_of_Breathing (Accessed: 12 June 2024).
Angel, R. (2010) Chemical Workers Song - Ron Angel (original version), YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1rOAMxSLVE (Accessed: 12 June 2024).
ITV News (2019) Middlesbrough’s air pollution worst in the North East, ITV News. Available at: https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2019-12-05/middlesbrough-s-air-pollution-worst-in-the-north-east-and-equivalent-to-smoking-90-cigarettes-a-year (Accessed: 12 June 2024).
ladstone, F. (1976) The Politics of Planning. London: Temple Smith.
derekBrown, K. (2024) Mass marine die-offs: Searching for the cause of these events in North East England, Biological Recording. Available at: https://biologicalrecording.co.uk/2023/07/27/mass-marine-die-offs/ (Accessed: 12 June 2024).