SULFUR TAPESTRIES
DATA: Each student in the Fall 2023 Energy Afterlives 360 chose a coal-fired power plant in the U.S. They downloaded data on that plant's sulfur dioxide emissions from the EPA's Clean Air Markets Program.
PROCESSING: For each year, the students binned their plant's sulfur data into standardized emissions bins (for example, level 1 was less than 14,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, level 2 was 14,000 to 28,000, etc.). They turned these into digital concentration stripes:
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PHYSICALIZING: From the binned data, the students knit their concentration stripes into mini tapestries. .
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DISPLAY: The finished tapestries were displayed as part of the Fall 2023 Energy Afterlives exhibition.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to the Bryn Mawr Makerspace, especially Bronwen Densmore and Sean Keenan. Also to Maya Hofstetter (BMC '25) for helping pilot the tapestry pattern and helping with knitting!