Traces: Navigating the Frontline of Climate Change
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, has called on political, financial and civic leaders to take bold action on September 23rd during the 2014 Summit on Climate Change. Equally engaged, the Magnum Foundation, faithful to its mission of promoting documentary photography with a social message, is presenting the work of Ian Teh in partnership with ChinaFile. Not only do his subtle and hazy panoramic photographs cover the metallic walls of the PhotoVille container, but one of his photographs will be carried as a banner during a march supporting climate legislation in New York. Winner of the 2011 Emergency Fund, and the Open Society Foundation’s 2012 Moving Walls prize, Ian Teh addresses the dramatic consequences of climate change and those who are affected by it.
Not so long ago, the Yellow River, an ancient symbol of Chinese culture, poured thick waves into the sea. This was before industrialization, which created jobs while destroying the local ecosystem on which the local population depended. Sprawling urban developments replaced its eddies in the space of a few years. Ian Teh’s panoramic landscapes favor aesthetics over facts. They are monochromatic and geometric, sometimes to the point of abstraction. The water and the land show their primitive, vital and sublime essence which has inspired so many myths, while the concrete infrastructures try to conceal them. Sometimes the two blend together in a confounding muddle as pollution clouds the angles of the city.
Photoville
Broken Screen, de Gaia Squarci
Until September 28, 2014
Pier 5 – Brooklyn Bridge Park
New York
