SSEHRI core faculty member Sara Wylie was awarded the Pilot Project Award for her project “Developing community based visceral data performances for cross disciplinary collaboration on environmental justice in Chelsea, MA” from the Center for Research on Environmental and Social Stressors in Housing Across the Life Course (CRESSH). From the CRESSH Newsletter: “The Pilot Project program is intended to support junior investigators to develop research projects focused on environmental health disparities that align with existing CRESSH research activities. Dr. Wylie’s project will be carried out in collaboration with Laura Perovich (MIT PhD candidate) and GreenRoots (CRESSH community partner).
“The project aims to examine industrial contamination of waterways in Chelsea, particularly pollution from the numerous oil storage facilities throughout the city, through performative visualizations of the environmental data with the aim of highlighting the social, health, and environmental justice implications of the water pollution. The project team will work with the GreenRoots’ youth group (Environmental Chelsea Organizers (ECO)) to come up with ways to visually represent the discharge from the oil storage facilities both over time and in aggregate via mediums such as long exposure photography. Through the public depictions of the water pollution impacting the city the project team hopes to engage Chelsea residents in investigating environmental justice issues and to support community conversations, led by GreenRoots, about alternative visions for Chelsea’s future.”