Mountains of broken computer monitors in Karachi. A deactivated nuclear power plant in Eastern Europe. Children worldwide that scamper over piles of refuse. These are just some of the dramatic images on display at the ECO 2011 exhibit on display at American University’s Katzen Arts Center through August 14th.
Sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of Spain, the Embassy of Spain, and the Spain-USA Foundation in collaboration with the Katzen Arts Center and FotoDC, ECO is a collection of photo essays based around the theme of “the environment,” something that each of the 20 Latin American and European photographic collectives was free to define for themselves. The curator, Claudi Carreras, was approached about the project by the Government of Spain, and the collectives involved in the project were all personal contacts he connected with while spending a year traveling Latin America. However, he states that he tried to keep a hands-off curatorial approach, allowing collectives to define their contributions as they saw fit.
The result is an eclectic collection. One essay focuses on a “rainmaker,” a man who was struck by lightning as a child and believes that the experience transferred to him the power of the gods. Another juxtaposes a deactivated nuclear plant in Germany, showing the loneliness and hopelessness of efforts to clean up after the uranium no longer has a use, with the despair in the faces of the former residents of Atom Island, a small island in the Pacific where Americans test nuclear bombs 50 years ago.
The photos were remarkable not for what they revealed about nature, but for what they revealed about human interaction with nature. A collection of unsettling photos of mounted and stuffed animals revealed the human ability to wipe out large swaths of biodiversity. Other photos showed people living in the favelas of Brazil, cut off by the forest that surrounds their homes by an imposing stone wall.
But more importantly, the photos revealed the human condition in a modern world. They showed ways of life that are ignored by the rushing flash of a 24-hour news cycle. Some thrive in the simplicity, but many become, as one essay described, refuse, what’s left over after the shiny newness is gone. The essay by a Spanish collective showing the effects of electronic waste stated that it takes 3.5 Euros to responsibly recycle electronics, but one 1.5 Euros to send the waste to Ghana or Karachi, where the mercury and lead seep into drinking water and cause brain damage and birth defects. The photos focus on the environments that the modernized world has forgotten.
When asked what his next project will be, Mr. Carreras said he wanted to look at Latin America within the United States. He is unsure when to expect the project to be completed.
To see a sample of the exhibit’s photos, please go to: www.flickr.com/photos/spainartsculture/sets/
a global affairs media network
ECO 2011: A Photographic Exhibition
June 5, 2011
Mountains of broken computer monitors in Karachi. A deactivated nuclear power plant in Eastern Europe. Children worldwide that scamper over piles of refuse. These are just some of the dramatic images on display at the ECO 2011 exhibit on display at American University’s Katzen Arts Center through August 14th.
Sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of Spain, the Embassy of Spain, and the Spain-USA Foundation in collaboration with the Katzen Arts Center and FotoDC, ECO is a collection of photo essays based around the theme of “the environment,” something that each of the 20 Latin American and European photographic collectives was free to define for themselves. The curator, Claudi Carreras, was approached about the project by the Government of Spain, and the collectives involved in the project were all personal contacts he connected with while spending a year traveling Latin America. However, he states that he tried to keep a hands-off curatorial approach, allowing collectives to define their contributions as they saw fit.
The result is an eclectic collection. One essay focuses on a “rainmaker,” a man who was struck by lightning as a child and believes that the experience transferred to him the power of the gods. Another juxtaposes a deactivated nuclear plant in Germany, showing the loneliness and hopelessness of efforts to clean up after the uranium no longer has a use, with the despair in the faces of the former residents of Atom Island, a small island in the Pacific where Americans test nuclear bombs 50 years ago.
The photos were remarkable not for what they revealed about nature, but for what they revealed about human interaction with nature. A collection of unsettling photos of mounted and stuffed animals revealed the human ability to wipe out large swaths of biodiversity. Other photos showed people living in the favelas of Brazil, cut off by the forest that surrounds their homes by an imposing stone wall.
But more importantly, the photos revealed the human condition in a modern world. They showed ways of life that are ignored by the rushing flash of a 24-hour news cycle. Some thrive in the simplicity, but many become, as one essay described, refuse, what’s left over after the shiny newness is gone. The essay by a Spanish collective showing the effects of electronic waste stated that it takes 3.5 Euros to responsibly recycle electronics, but one 1.5 Euros to send the waste to Ghana or Karachi, where the mercury and lead seep into drinking water and cause brain damage and birth defects. The photos focus on the environments that the modernized world has forgotten.
When asked what his next project will be, Mr. Carreras said he wanted to look at Latin America within the United States. He is unsure when to expect the project to be completed.
To see a sample of the exhibit’s photos, please go to: www.flickr.com/photos/spainartsculture/sets/
