Dust is so ubiquitous that most people barely notice it. Jay Owens is an exception. She has been paying close attention to dust for many years, traveling the world to find its many origins, and writing an intermittent newsletter about it. I was first introduced to her work through The Price of Perfection, an essay about iPhone production standards and the inevitability of dust. Twenty-four new iPhone models have been introduced since the essay was published, and her reflections on the pursuit of perfection are still relevant.
Dust has proved a fertile ground for study, and Owens' research has culminated in a new book that explores its many lives: as pollution, as a means of dating ice cores, as nuclear fallout, and more. She writes, "The particles may be tiny, but the problems they usher in their wake are planetary."
Starting on 2024-01-05, Scope of Work's Reading Group will be reading Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles by Jay Owens. Each Friday, we discuss the book on Zoom and swap links and thoughts throughout the week on Slack. Jay will be joining our final discussion on 2024-03-01.
Members of Scope of Work can join the conversation in the #community-reading-groups channel on Slack.
