If only these attributes of resilience and humanity were more visible in the world.
Human is chock full of the varied and tangled up stories of what people get up to in their lives in a changing world. Each photograph tells a still developing story. Each reader will find favorite visual frames that pique, intrigue, call into question, astonish, or remind one of our common ground and ancient origins. I was enamored of Yael Martnez images of fireflies that conjured up magical realism and mysticism; Andrea Diefenbach's Moldova where , writes the artist, "The tempo of everyday life " oscillates between departure and stagnation;" Ragnar Axelsson's astonishing frames from Where the World is melting, including dark fjords in Greenland and locals tangling with the wildlife of Siberia; and, Monica Alca'zar-Duarte's bold confrontations with the future now in Visualizing the Algorithm.
Human includes essays from David Christian, Meehan Crist, and Michael Benson (talking with Sebastião Salgado). In "Humans on the Edge," Christian worries about our growing estrangement from the biosphere. He writes,
But humans are also very, very strange. Indeed, by some criteria we are the strangest species ever to have appeared on Earth. The best measure of our strangeness is our power over other species, and over the oceans, continents and atmosphere of our home planet.
Strange, indeed. And he wonders aloud, "Are we clever and caring enough to avoid catastrophe and build a future in which our ancestors may thrive and flourish far into the future?"
In "The Power of Humility," Crist ponders sustainability and our blithe posture regarding the salvation value of new technologies. He writes, "For those among us for whom the status quo is a bleak and barbarous place, the idea that nothing but technology will change in the future provides no such locus of hope. In the face of such a worldview, one cannot help but wonder about how to define 'nature' and 'needs'."
And in Michael Benson's piece, "The Victor Hugo de nos jours," Sebastião Salgado tells the writer how he transitioned from being a luster lackey for the World Bank to a fledgling but urgent photographer, supported by his young beautiful architect wife. Salgado explains how he went on all his fact-finding tours with his camera. He tells Benson,
When I went to Rwanda, I took my camera. Coming back to London, the pictures I made there gave me ten times more pleasure than the economic report I had to write. Just after that, I went on trips to Burundi and the Congo, and the same thing happened when I came back " huge enthusiasm. Photography was slowly becoming my inspiration, my obsession.
If only everyone would quit the World Bank and start chronicling with snapshots of our collective demise!
The Prix Pictet exhibit featuring the photos of Human just closed in London but is now going on a worldwide tour; next up The Red Cross Museum in Geneva and then on to balmy Nassau. You can do a virtual tour of the London exhibit of the photographs in Human at the Prix Pictet website.
You can see more of Gauri Gill's award-winning images at her website.
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This is a slightly altered version of the article as it appeared in Modern Times Review on October 31, 2023
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