2025
Above: installation documentation by Adrian Wood
Evidence: Coal Dust in Hampton Roads is a multimedia exhibition that focuses on coal dust pollution that has plagued residents of Southeast Newport News, Virginia, for decades. It was installed June-July 2025 at Downing-Gross Cultural Arts Center in Newport News, VA.
Data, stories, photographs and maps illustrate the day-to-day effects of coal dust on people’s lives in this historically Black neighborhood. These materials come out of the 2+ years of research and engagement led by the Coal Dust Kills campaign, initiated by the Repair Lab at the University of Virginia.
The goal of the exhibition is to connect residents with research and each other in order to build power and momentum in the fight for a clean, healthy neighborhood, free from coal dust. I designed and installed this exhibition that includes over a dozen photographs I made in home visits with residents dealing with the daily effects of coal dust.
Data, stories, photographs and maps illustrate the day-to-day effects of coal dust on people’s lives in this historically Black neighborhood. These materials come out of the 2+ years of research and engagement led by the Coal Dust Kills campaign, initiated by the Repair Lab at the University of Virginia.
The goal of the exhibition is to connect residents with research and each other in order to build power and momentum in the fight for a clean, healthy neighborhood, free from coal dust. I designed and installed this exhibition that includes over a dozen photographs I made in home visits with residents dealing with the daily effects of coal dust.
The exhibition also includes:
ng the unequal effect of coal dust on Black residents in Hampton Roads.
ng the unequal effect of coal dust on Black residents in Hampton Roads.
- An interactive station with access to the Repair Lab’s growing online archive, Voices in The Dust, where all the data and research around anti-coal dust advocacy is publicly available – including air monitor data, policy research and oral histories I recorded through over 100 in-person interviews;
- A civic engagement training that empowers residents to collaborate with decisionmakers about problems in their community;
- Listening station with looping playback of Crosswinds (2024), a podcast I produced about coal dust pollution and resistance;
- Live viewing of the short documentary film Coal Blooded (Brandon Davis, 2022), about coal dust pollution in Hampton Roads;
- Maps by public scholar Johnny Finn.