Brother Nut and the Vacuum of Pollution

Brother Nut joins me from somewhere near Beijing, China. Behind him, there’s the warm glow of afternoon sun on an office, minimally furnished. He wears a black bandana and a festive floral shirt in blue, pink, and green, which contrasts with his modest head garb. He’s got sharp yet kind eyes — you can tell he smiles a lot.

“At school, I studied Chinese literature. I wrote poems and other types of writing, and got drawn to the limitless aspect of art in conveying a message,” he says in Chinese. Our translator quickly relates Brother Nut’s ideas.

In 2013, Brother Nut witnessed the worst air pollution China has ever experienced in the heart of Beijing. Largely due to fossil fuel usage, hazardous smog permeated the majority of Eastern China, causing havoc to residents’ health and disrupting domestic and international travel. “I come from a small town. When I first moved to Beijing, right away, I could see the difference in the pollution level between where I was from and in the city,” he shares. “During the year 2013, in Beijing, I finally decided to take action and prepared for my first project.”

Brother Nut started investigating just how much pollution was present in and around Beijing. The results were overwhelming. “The pollution has spread to nearby small towns to a point where we found dangerous levels of heavy metal in soil and water,” he explains.

And this is how Brother Nut began planning for his renowned ‘Dust Project.’ A simple yet powerful statement is his preferred stylistic choice. For this project, Brother Nut travelled around Beijing and its nearby towns, dragging an industrial-sized vacuum cleaner with him to suck up all the air pollution over 100 days. “Then I would mix the collected dust materials with red clay to create a brick,” he says.

“Why bricks?” I ask.

“I liked the idea of bricks for their ubiquity. It was an effective medium to show just how much pollution there was,” he explains. “It was important for me to give shape to something shapeless.” After vacuuming the air of Beijing for 100 days, Brother Nut gathered enough dust to produce one solid brick to display for the public.

“There’s also a Buddhist message of the cycle of life,” Brother Nut muses. “Dust comes from something solid, and by making them into bricks, they go back to their beginning.”

The reception for the project was sensational, and put the entirely anonymous Brother Nut on an international radar. He was invited to speak at events such as the Creative Time Summit and was featured in major Western news outlets.

His quirky, visceral and creative advocacy continued. In 2021, he shed light on Shangdong province’s water pollution problem through a piece called ‘Zebo Hotpot Fish,’ portraying the polluted river via the imagery of an unappetizing hotpot dish using 50 inflatable fish in the Zebo area of the Yueyang River.

However, the danger of being an outspoken performance artist is very real. “As our government is authoritarian, I must maintain the anonymity of myself and my loved ones,” Brother Nut confides. “It was the first major difficulty in continuing with my projects and advocacy.”

Brother Nut shares that the pollution investigations he launches can be exhaustive, as they take a long time to produce results, and he mostly works on his own. “There’s the problem with finance, too,” he admits. “You don’t generate a lot of income doing projects like this.”

There’s a simple brilliance about Brother Nut’s art. Without convolution, his performance leads the audience to a powerful realisation of the current situation and how to help, even if it feels hopeless.

“It’s extremely important to disrupt the major polluters, making them pay attention by lowering their profits.”

Indeed, the unstoppable artist has had a positive impact. He once influenced the local government of Xiaohaotu village in Shaanxi Province, where residents were suffering from water pollution caused by gas and coal mining, to distribute water filters. Subsequently, the government drilled 14 wells for the whole township, ensuring safe drinking water for more than 10,000 villagers.

How did he do it? He simply filled 10,000 empty bottles of the popular spring water brand in China with murky, contaminated water, making a statement about the stark difference in water quality.

Internationally praised and accepted, he may be, but Brother Nut doesn’t take himself too seriously. He believes that it’s the most natural thing to make a statement about the climate and pollution reality through his art.

“Everyone is aware of climate change, but very few people understand how their lives are affected by this issue, which leads to inaction,” he points out.  For Brother Nut, anyone and everyone has the power to spread awareness about the dangers of climate change.

Brother Nut’s mind is unstoppable in imagining how he can shape the amorphous reality of climate change into a tangible form that sears into the public’s minds, propelling them to take action.

“I want to reveal what lies under the surface to the youth through comedic relief,” he laughs.

While we must pay attention to what is happening to our climate, for Brother Nut and the constant pressure and censorship he faces in his work, it’s important not to lose a sense of humour.

When I ask if he had any message to his audience, he smiles bashfully. Then he answers with the only rules that he follows to fulfil his role as an artist who never stops confronting – simple, yet truthful.

“Take care of yourself and work hard.”