DUSTS INSTITUTE

RESEARCH ENTERPRISE             dustsinstitute@gmail.com





SHOW: All  INSTALLATIONS  APPEARANCES  WORKSHOPS  PURCHASE  RESEARCH
Cycle of the Unseen
2025 What does a city breathe, and how do its architectures shape the movement of air and dust? The performance explores Hong Kong as an atmospheric system, where pollution, wind, and infrastructure co-produce invisible flows. Through contemporary dance and site-specific choreography, a performer embodies a single grain of dust drifting across streets, ventilation structures, coastlines, and forests—an agent carried, accumulated, dispersed, and absorbed. 

performance  
website link

Venice Biennale
2025 What should outer architectural surfaces look like, and why? Epidermitecture challenges conventional notions of cleanliness and maintenance by exploring naturally occurring stains—thin layers of microorganisms (biopatinas) that filter air pollutants, reduce heat islands, and support biodiversity. Exhibited as part of the curatorial selection at Arsenale. 

group exhibition
website link

European Cultural Capital Trenčín 2026
2025-2026 This research project explores the evolving roles of urban and architectural surfaces in response to climate change, new technologies, and material processes. By examining weathering, patina, cleaning protocols, and renovation practices, the project reinterprets façade transformations as dynamic interactions between materiality, aesthetics, and environmental forces, challenging conventional notions of maintenance and urban identity.

exhibition/workshps/research
website link

India Design Week
2025 The Dust-Free Chamber exhibited at India Design Week, hosted in city with some of the world's worst air quality - New Delhi, offering a rare experience of breathing purified air. As part of the event, Dusts Institute will present its vision for sustainable urban environments, emphasizing the interplay between activism, architecture, and ecological responsibility.

talk/installation
website link

Terre et Temps
2024 As part of a European art/culture festival in France, the performance revealed and enacted the lifecycle of a dust particle, from its formation to its dispersal and transformation. Through movement, sound, and material interventions, the piece made visible dust’s unseen choreography—how it drifted, accumulated, eroded, and reconfigured space

performance
website link

Klima Biennale
2024 "All Surfaces Clean at All Times" was the title of the exhibition we attended as part of the Klima Biennale in Vienna, highlighting the urgent need to rethink aesthetic norms in architectural surfaces, particularly in the context of climate change.

group exhibition
website link

Bordering Plants
2024 For the Bordering Plants exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, our contribution extended beyond co-curating the show to creating a site-specific installation—a Growing Garden that responded to its environment.

group exhibition
website link

Light for Biodiversity
2026  An insect-friendly light intervention that transforms a shared urban courtyard into a carefully attuned nocturnal space, balancing human presence with the needs of nocturnal insects and other non-human life.  Through subtle adjustments of light spectrum of existing street lamps, the project reshapes everyday illumination into a collective act of care.  The on-site workshops turn the site into a temporary learning environment, where participants actively participate in testing, reflecting on, and shaping alternative practices of urban lighting together.
site-specific
Klima Biennale Vienna

Dusts -free- Chamber
2021  An immersive installation with a controlled environment, offering a personal experience to breathe completely dust-free air.   By eliminating dust at a microscopic level, the installation provides a unique sensory experience of purified air, making the usually imperceptible systems of air control and environmental regulation physically tangible.

pop-up
video link

Weisser Fleck
2024  A living artwork, a scientific experiment, and a conceptual challenge to urban maintenance practices, this project 'draws' a 10-meter diameter circle on the façade of a housing block in Vienna by the thin layer of microorganisms that have accumulated on its surface.

semi-permanent
video link

Airsight Deck
2022  An interactive installation in public space that makes invisible environmental changes visible. How does the air around us change with the seasons—its color shifting in winter, summer heat, inversion, or smog? The installation presents twelve atmospheric scenarios, each revealing different levels of air pollution throughout the year.
site-specific
video link

Dusts Catching  
This workshop explores techniques for capturing and analyzing airborne dust, revealing its material presence and environmental significance. Through hands-on experiments and our Dusts Catcher Kit participants engage with filtration methods, surface sampling, and microscopic observation, transforming dust from an overlooked residue into a tool for understanding urban atmospheres.  

up to 25 participants
all age groups

Biopatina Workshop
 This workshop examines the natural aging and transformation of architectural surfaces through organic interactions with the environment. Participants explore weathering patterns, microbial growth, and material alterations, reinterpreting stains, discolorations, and patinas not as decay, but as dynamic markers of time and ecological processes.

up to 25 participants
all age groups

Light Catching
 This workshop explores the hidden biodiversity of the urban night through direct observation of nocturnal insects. Through shared observation and discussion, the workshop encourages participants to recognise the diversity, behaviour, and ecological roles of species that usually remain unseen, fostering a deeper awareness of urban ecosystems and the fragile life that emerges after dark.

up to 25 participants
all age groups

©dusts.institute Vienna(AT)/Trenčín(SK)