Interdisciplinary initiative committed to enhancing livable conditions for human and more-than-human life in urban environments
We reimagine environmental engagement through collective practices and storytelling
that invite and empower meaningful action.
We are at the beginning of this journey, and we invite you to seed air with us.
How to seed air?
Our actions emerge from stories we pass down through generations and the experiences we carry of the worlds around us. When a narrative shifts, new possibilities take root. Dust, often dismissed as nuisance or waste, hold multitudes of life, no less complex than our own human bodies. It carries pollen, bacteria, viruses, spores, and human and nonhuman debris, among many others. Dust is not a singular mass — it never travels alone. It is longing to be in relation. Therefore, the plural form matters: Dusts.
SEMBRAR AIRE cultivates new narratives that are committed to restoryation: the weaving together of story and restoration. A practice inspired by the work of the ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer. By reshaping how we define air, particles, and urban ecologies, we begin to change how we act.
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.
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.
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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 and microorganisms) 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.
DUSTS WALKS
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 uswith the help of the Dusts Catchers.
We welcome opportunities for collaboration! Invite us to host DUSTS WALKS near you.
DUSTS ARCHIVE
Bogotà, Colombia, August 2025
Together with the architecture student association CESCA, Universidad de los Andes
Cali, Colombia, July 2025
Together with the architecture student association CESCA, Universidad del Valle
Cartagena, Colombia, March 2025
Part of the WHO Conference on Air Pollution Together with communities working on air quality, urban ecology, sustainable fishery, and Afro-Colombian women's rights.
Lucerne, Switzerland, June 2024
In the garden of the Museum Bellpark
Bogotà, Colombia, November 2023
Part of the Suratomica Festival
Berlin, Germany, June 2021
In collaboration with top-ev and Pragovka for Art
AIR ATLAS
Do you have a Dust Catcher?
Send it to us, and it will be added to the map.
JOURNAL
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
ECOTONES - PARIS
During my time in Paris, plants took me for a walk. Through the memory of an ancient sea, along the first tree-lined boulevards, and under toxic clouds. How have they been able to land?
Read article here
Listen to the Dusts Walk in Paris:
Seeding Clouds
cooming soon
DUSTS KEEPERS
The worldwide network connects NGOs, associations, urban planners, architects and artists to engage and exchange on how to increase the quality of life for human and nonhuman beings in urban environments. We aim to build a new generation of DUSTS KEEPERS that act locally while having their antennas attuned to the global circulation, impacts and origins of dusts.
We meet once every two months to discuss upcoming projects, possible collaboration and funding applications.
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