Kraków’s latest art installation can create stunning jewellery from city smog

A pop-up art installation in Kraków is transforming smog particles into designer rings in a new push to battle deadly air pollution.

The Smog Free Tower in the city’s Jordana park purifies 30,000 cubic metres of air per hour, collecting particles of soot, dust and air pollution which can be compressed and transformed into designer rings. The jewellery, which has already featured in exhibtions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Netherlands’ Stedelijk museum, can be bought via the design studio online.

Created by Studio Roosegaarde back in 2016, the 7-metre tower has already appeared in China and the Netherlands. The team chose to install the tower in Kraków thanks to the city’s hardline initiatives to clean the region’s notoriously polluted air.

The installation’s time in Poland will be marked with a pop-up exhibition at the city’s Museum of Contemporary Arts, where one of the team’s “smog free” rings will be on display.

For more information on the Smog Free project, or to buy a ring of your own, click here.