The Weight of Air | Sorcha McNamara

Custom House Studios + Gallery

13 August - 13 September 2026

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To calculate the weight of air is to calculate something very light. Imperceptible. Something always moving through time.

It can be done. The calculation. Though only within the formula of volume multiplied by density. Various instruments are needed to record these measurements.

Air floats, it falls, it collapses. To measure its composition is to contain it. 14.7 pounds per square inch of air pressure pushes down on us at any given moment. One cubic foot of air weighs approximately 0.0807 pounds. Yet, as the Earth’s atmosphere, air weighs about 5 quadrillion tonnes and is around 300 miles thick.

This room is too small to hold all of that.

Air is molecular; air is particular. Air is a phantom, ineffable, invisible, elemental, mercurial. All-encompassing. Only visible by the effect it has on other things. By the behaviour of what surrounds it.

Air is a black hole. To get too close to its why risks reaching a point of no return.

As opposed to sitting with the full stops, definitions, and laws of engineering, The Weight of Air instead invites you to consider what is barely perceived to begin with.

A ripple. An undulation. A glance, a gap, a nostril flare. A hesitation; measured.