Fotofest 2016: artists capture human impact on a changing planet – in pictures

A new book, Changing Circumstances: Looking at the Future of the Planet, features artworks and essays from 34 leading artists on humanity’s effect on the environment, from climate change to waste. The book launch marks the Fotofest biennial in Houston, US, that runs from 12 March to 24 April

  • Soup – Bird’s Nest Ingredients by Mandy Barker

    Ocean tides turn discarded fishing line into nest-like balls collecting other debris in their path. ‘ I hope viewers of my work will feel a connection to the diverse collections of plastic my images show and start to question how their food packaging, hairbrush, computer, or shoe ended up in the ocean. If this shocks people – getting them to think and hopefully act – it will bring positive action to protect many species on our planet and ultimately the human race itself.’
    Soup – Bird’s Nest Ingredients by Mandy Barker Ocean tides turn discarded fishing line into nest-like balls collecting other debris in their path

  • The Titan Crane by Gina Glover

    Hotellneset Coal Harbour, Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, Norway. ‘Although we know that the Earth’s average surface temperature has increased by 1.4F (0.8C) since the 1880s, driven by human-caused emissions, it is another thing to witness the effects firsthand. Environmental destruction, once thought to be localized, now ripples across the planet. My photographs investigate the connections between the burning of coal, the main source of the world’s electrical power, and the melting of glaciers and icebergs.’
    The Titan Crane by Gina GloverHotellneset Coal Harbour, Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen, Norway

  • Star Field – Bracken, 2008, by Susan Derges

    ‘Looking at the natural world feels like looking into one vast, unfolding, creative process that “I” and “nature” are a part of together, rather than a process where nature is something “out there” happening to me “in here.” Image-making has become an activity of trying to make the connection between the “two” (or, you could say, the “not two”) worlds.’
    Star Field – Bracken, 2008, by Susan Derges

  • Suffocation #12, 2012–2014 by Pedro David

    ’Several international steel companies have bought large portions of land in Brazil and replaced the natural vegetation with transgenic eucalyptus, a fast-growing kind of tree whose wood is used to make vegetal coal, an important ingredient in the smelting of iron ore to steel.The eucalyptus tree, however, makes high demands on the environment: it grows fast, consumes a lot of water and nutrients, and leaves the soil exhausted and dry.’
    Suffocation #12, 2012–2014 by Pedro David

  • The end of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier floats into the Ilulissat Icefjord, a Unesco World Heritage Site, 35 miles east of Ilulissat, Greenland

    Sermeq Kujalleq, is one of the most active glaciers in the world, moving an average of 62 feet per day and calving eight cubic miles of ice per year, or 10% of all Greenlandic calf ice. 2014. By Daniel Beltra
    Sermeq Kujalleq glacier

  • Can art perform and not just be noticed by Peter Fend

    ‘During cross-country workouts in the Midwest, I found the farms repulsive and filthy, but marshes and forests pleasant. So I wanted the land returned to hunting, fishing, and gathering, with farming confined to near-city plots. I desired to turn the US and world society back to pre-Neolithic land use, albeit with high-tech, including satellites. I have struggled to aim Earth Art, video/ film, and Constructivism toward these ends, so far without success.’
    Can art perform and not just be noticed by Peter Fend

  • Thirst, 2009, by

    Dornith Doherty‘Spurred by the completion of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, I began the project Archiving Eden in 2008 as a way to explore the role of seed banks and their preservation efforts in the face of climate change and the coming extinction of many natural species. In researching international seed banks, I discovered a complex web of political and economic issues surrounding these large-scale collections, all relating to who should have control of one of the world’s most basic resources.’
    Thirst, 2009, by Dornith Doherty

  • Madagascar: A Treasured Island, 2013, by Toby Smith

    ‘I aspire to reveal the often distant and terrible consequence of our material desires and unsustainable growth.’
    Madagascar: A Treasured Island, 2013, by Toby Smith

  • Spanish Moss, 2009, by Karen Glaser

    ‘Time spent in the freshwater springs and rivers of north central Florida inspired my trip to the southern part of the state where the most magnificent primordial swamps are located, in Big Cypress National Preserve and its neighbor, the Everglades National Park. Some of these areas are still wild, primitive, and untouched. The photographs are made “inside” the waterways and show the worlds that exist below the surface.’
    Spanish Moss, 2009, by Karen Glaser

  • Colorado River Delta #2, Near San Felipe, Baja, Mexico, 2011 by Edward Burtynsky

    ‘Over the past five years, I have learned a few things about water. When it is disrupted from its natural course, there are always winners and losers... While trying to accommodate the growing needs of an expanding, and very thirsty, civilization, we are reshaping the Earth in colossal ways. In this new and powerful role over the planet, we are also capable of engineering our own demise.’
    Colorado River Delta #2, Near San Felipe, Baja, Mexico, 2011 by Edward Burtynsky

  • Facing the Tube, 2015, by Roberto Fernández Ibáñez

    ‘As an artist, I would like my work to be seen not just as a personal view of nice images, but rather as a wake-up call to action. I don’t see myself as having a relationship with the planet: I am the planet. ‘
    Facing the Tube, 2015, by Roberto Fernández Ibáñez

  • Ek Rupaya Bada Gilass [One Rupee For a Big Glass], 2009 – 2012 by Atul Bhalla

    ‘I grew up drinking water from public places in Delhi and wherever I traveled within India ... we used to stop for a drink of cool water at the piau (faucet), where people would offer water in an earthen pot, pouring it from a copper vessel with a spout as they leaned from a window. The piaus slowly vanished from New Delhi as water started to “sell”! In place of piaus, carts of “Refrigerated Cold Water” started to appear, which advertised water for five, 10, or 25 paisa and now two rupees a glass.’
    Ek Rupaya Bada Gilass [One Rupee For a Big Glass], 2009 – 2012 by Atul Bhalla

  • Night Shift with Lamps, 2007 by Nigel Dickinson

    Smokey Mountain, Steung Mean Chey, is Phnom Penh in Cambodia’s municipal rubbish dump. Thousands work there, some 600 minors and 2,000 adults, recycling the city’s rubbish, dumped there by garbage trucks every day. The dump is notorious as many very young children work there. People eat and sleep overnight in the rubbish and fumes, under plastic tarpaulins or in the open air.
    They work 24 hours a day, like miners, with headlamps at night, collecting plastic, metals, wood, cloth & paper, which they sort and clean, weigh and sell, to be carried away for recycling. A day’s work typically brings less than a dollar per person. One and a half to two dollars per day per family. The overpowering, acrid odour of grey smokey fumes blows across the dump, from which the place gets its name ‘Smokey Mountain’. It can be smelt miles away. The shantytowns and squats, the recycling worker’s homes butt onto or are inside the dump itself. There is no running water, sanitation and many are ill. Children often work with friends or relatives. Religious and ngo’s help some children, but this is often resisted by families who need the extra income they generate.///Working at night, recycling rubbish, in Smokey Mountain. The workers rent lamps and batteries for 1000 Rial (25c $ US)

  • Land of the Sun, 2015, by Nicklas Goldbach

    ‘Land of the Sun was filmed in California City, in November 2014. It was created in 1965 when real estate developer and sociology professor Nat Mendelsohn purchased 80,000 acres (320 km2) of Mojave Desert land with the aim of master-planning California’s next great city. Despite expectations, growth did not follow. Today a vast grid of crumbling paved roads covers huge stretches of the Mojave Desert ... The failure of the gigantic California City project reads like a prologue to the recent financial, real estate, and ecological crisis.’
    Land of the Sun, 2015, by Nicklas Goldbach

  • Fruit Loops Landscape, 2012, by Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochm

    Fruit Loops Landscape from the series, Processed Views (4x5 vericolor 100 printed 18”x 22”) inspiration Carleton Watkins, Albion River, Mendocino County, CA, 1863. ‘In those photographs, we traced the emotional and physical energy that flows through the intimate act of preparing and sharing food. The flip side of mealtime in America, however, is the complex, impersonal system of industrial agriculture, food processing, and marketing.’
    Fruit Loops Landscape, 2012, by Barbara Ciurej and Lindsay Lochm Fruit Loops Landscape from the series, Processed Views (4x5 vericolor 100 printed 18”x 22”) inspiration Carleton Watkins, Albion River, Mendocino County, CA, 1863

  • Lurie Children’s Memorial (Looking Southwest), Chicago, IL, May 2012 by Brad Temkin

    ‘Rooftop draws attention to an important new movement to counter the heat island effect caused by city life, its structures, and waste heat. Green roofs reduce our carbon footprint and improve storm water control, but in a poetic sense they do far more. They reflect the conflict at the heart of our existence as city dwellers, symbolizing our concern for nature in the face of continuing urban sprawl.’
    Lurie Children’s Memorial (Looking Southwest), Chicago, IL, May 2012 by Brad Temkin

  • The book is co-published by FotoFest International and and Schilt Publishing. The cover features Joel Sartore’s Brown Hooded Kingfisher (Halcyon albiventris), Chitengo Camp, Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, 2011.
    Book cover
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