Page 98 - ARTE!Brasileiros #52

ENGLISH VERSION AGAINST THE DEVASTATION

Skoufias notes: “while the eyes of the world have homeless people and another 71 thousand exposure of disadvantaged groups to “adverse
been riveted on polar bears, Antarctic penguins, directly affected. Forty of the 212 neighborhoods effects of climate change”; the susceptibility of
and other endangered inhabitants of the Earth’s in the city were impacted by the flooding of the disadvantaged groups to damage caused by
shrinking ice caps, relatively few researchers Acre River, which normally has a level of six to climatic hazards; and the relative ability of these
have turned serious attention – until recent eight meters and can be below three in periods groups to cope and recover from the damage
years – to quantify the prospective long-term of drought. Mendel reports that when he got they suffer. In the case of floods, for example,
effects of climate change on human welfare”. there, the water level had already turned down, disadvantaged groups are more likely to live
“I bring people into the depiction of climate having previously passed over the roofs of some in areas prone to flooding, however, they have
change”, says Gideon, based in London. With houses. “The people [I portrayed] belonged to less economic and political power to recover
his Submerged Portraits project, he began a poor community and they may have no access from the damage caused by the floods and/or
documenting floods in 2007, when a series to running water, so they would use the flood to collect compensation from the State.
of summer rains caused much of central and waters to clean their walls”. “We live in capitalism. Its power seems
northern Britain to be submerged. Within weeks Analyzing the scenario of environmental inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.
of the first episode, 30 million people in India, response since then, the photographer makes the Any human power can be resisted and changed
Bangladesh and Nepal had to escape much larger reservation: “It was not as the government before by human beings. Resistance and change often
than normal floods. The contrast between the Bolsonaro was brilliant in terms of its response begin in art”, said the late writer Ursula K. Le
impacts of the two events, while sharing a certain to the environment, I think it was acting in very Guin in 2014, at the age of 84. Regarding Le
vulnerability that seems to provide a stimulus contradictory sort of ways. What is terrifying, in a Guin’s speech, Mendel confesses: “I would be
for unity, motivated the photographer to put global sense, is that, in a moment in history when very happy to agree, I wish I could agree, but I
in practice the idea of a series portraying flood you need concerted global action - particularly am bleak for the future”. Despite this, he also
victims. Since then, he has visited Haiti, Pakistan, in Climate Change -, there are so many populists notes that he might be surprised. “Coming of
Australia, Bangladesh, South Carolina, Kashmir leaders around the world who are doing their age in South Africa, in the late 1980s, I would
and Brazil, to name some of the 13 countries that, best to undermine environmental efforts - and I have never imagened that Apartheid would have
within the project, represent 19 floods. think with huge support from the petrochemical come down, it was completeley incomsiveble,
Even before developing Submerged Portraits industrial complex”. so one can be surprised of how things change”.
(encompassed by a larger project called Drowning In 2011, in the article Four phrases that The hopelessness in his speech is put to the
World), Mendel was no longer a beginner. He had make Pinocchio’s nose grow, the Uruguayan test, however, by the continuity of his projects,
captured imagetically themes such as Apartheid journalist and writer Eduardo Galeano also which according to the photographer are
and the hiv / aids crisis in South Africa, for notes the support of industry sectors in this established in a pyramid sustained between
which he won the World Press Photo. He sees reversal of environmental efforts - although, documentary, art, and activism. “With Drowning
Submerged Portraits as a departure from classic at that time, not referring to the phenomenon World, it has always been a debate: when do we
photojournalism: “I am not a documentarist, I of populism. Galeano reminds us that of the finish? Can I finish? In what point is complete?
am kind of an intervener of sorts”, he claims. ten largest seed producing companies in the And that is a question I haven’t quite resolved
To which he adds, “I am not just photographing world, six manufacture pesticides (Sandoz- for myself because there’s always more to do”.
what is in front of me, I am constructing scenarios Ciba-Geigy, Dekalb, Pfizer, Upjohn, Shell, iCi). Mendel also plans to continue the Fire project,
with the people. I am choosing the background, “The chemical industry has no masochistic which covers another facet of climate disaster
I am choosing where to place people. I am not tendencies”, writes the Uruguayan. He says: driven by human action. For his next venture
coming to those people at home and taking “The recovery of the planet or of what is left of with Fire, the photographer plans to raise
their pictures as they are. In a certain way, what it implies the denouncing of the impunity of funds to finance a return to California, where he
I’ve been trying to do is produce a consistent money, and human freedom. Neutral ecology, photographed in 2018, and to Brazil, to document
image from place to place, with a familiarity in which rather resembles gardening, becomes the consequences of the burning of the Pantanal.
it, a repetition of the gaze. I am not just making an accomplice to the injustice of a world Besides continuing these two works, he studies
evidence, I am seeking to make pictures that where healthy food, clean water, clean air and the possibility of making an unprecedented
speak through being aesthetically powerful and silence are not everyone’s rights - but rather production based on his family history. His
even a disconcerting beauty amidst the horror.” the privileges of the few who can pay for them”. parents were German Jews who found refuge
There is, indeed, something disconcerting The relationship between class and the in South Africa. His paternal grandmother also
about the images. On the one hand, they are environmental crisis, highlighted by Galeano tried to leave Germany but ended up failing. The
conventional portraits of people standing in front in this section, has been gaining more attention photographer’s father kept the documents that
of the camera and looking at it. However, the in the last decade. This is a factor that Mendel had been prepared for his mother’s coming,
context, the landscape and the environment are didn’t overlook, due to the time-spatial diversity however. To this, Gideon adds correspondences
extraordinary. Therefore, they are disconcerting among the ones portrayed by him, people who and albums made by his grandmother, who
together. This classic portrait format helps - even belonging to the same country, but in studied photography in Berlin from 1915 to 1917.
to give honesty to Submerged Portraits, an different regions - will have different conditions “I’ve been sitting with this work for so many years,
admission of scene manipulation. to deal with the damage caused by the floods and I’ve always resisted it, but the time’s come
When he came to Rio Branco, in 2013, the and the reconstruction of their lives. to try. Maybe I had to wait for my mother to die,
level of the Acre River had reached 17.88 meters, In a report released by the United Nations she died two years ago. The problem is this is
having exceeded its historical quota registered Department of Economic and Social Affairs not a unique story, many families have been hurt
in 1997, when it reached the mark of 17.66 meters. (desa-Un), social inequality (not only economic, by migrations, the question is how do I make
At the time, five public shelters were set up in the but also of political power) and the climate crisis it, what do I bring to it”. It remains to follow his
capital to receive the flood victims: 6 thousand are interconnected - mainly - by three factors: the course to know.

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