Stephen Bennett, Same Planet, Different World

Stephen’s data visualisation gives a glimpse of the wilding of London, enabled by covid. Lighter pixels show lower levels of air pollution in March 2020 compared to March 2019. Stephen explores the intersection of art, science and policy. His starting point is how data increasingly penetrates our everyday lives whilst remaining abstract, vast, disembodied and unknowing. This, combined with globalisation and the growing complexity of society, is contributing to citizens feeling dislocated from public decision-making. In response, he seeks out information from online sources and then materialises it in analogue, organic and sensorially diverse ways. By making scientific evidence something that can be visualised, touched and played with, he aims to empower people. Stephen’s multimedia works play with geography and scale, moving between microscopic and macroscopic levels. With domestic and suburban motifs blown up to evoke planetary phenomena, he draws a link between everyday, individual activities and global issues. He is convinced that Carol Hanisch’s rallying cry is even more important than ever: the personal is political.