From Dust to Dusts

From Dust to Dusts is a richly illustrated exploration of air’s hidden materiality and the plural worlds of dust. Drawing from the interdisciplinary practice of the Vienna based Dusts Institute, the book reveals dusts as more than residue: they are carriers of histories, markers of transformation, and agents of connection across geographies, species, and time. Blending artistic research, environmental science, architecture, and public engagement, the publication traces projects such as the Dusts Catcher Kit, Dusts-Free Chamber, Biopatina Workshop, and the large-scale Airsight Deck installation. These interventions make the invisible visible while capturing airborne particles, revealing microbial ecologies on building façades, and transforming air into a perceptible, participatory medium. Essays and visual documentation unpack the Institute’s concept of “dustsing”: a methodology of sensing, collecting, and activating dusts to challenge assumptions about cleanliness, permanence, and environmental stewardship. Moving from microscopic particulate matter to planetary airflows, the book examines dusts as both pollutants and ecological contributors, revealing their role in climate systems, biodiversity, and urban atmospheres. A call for attunement and care, From Dust to Dusts invites readers to rethink air not as empty space but as a shared, contested, and dynamic commons, one that is continuously inscribed by the smallest particles we live among. keywords: