Climate change solutions require both local and global perspectives. This exhibition brings together three photography projects from the African continent offering views on a changing world alongside ways of creating or contributing towards a more sustainable future.
They are a way of showing what the future may hold for us and how we can prepare ourselves for the impacts of climate change. In recognising work being done elsewhere, in seeing what sustainable ideas can be adapted and used, we can see how to actively learn from others and value the role that photography plays in sharing this knowledge.
In Gallery 1, Etinosa Yvonne’s series of diptychs show us everyday routines of sourcing clean water. The male water carriers have set a precedent for taking on this role, a break from the traditional association of women and girls as responsible for fetching water. While it may seem to be a process far removed from our lives here, it shows the flexibility we must have to move through a changing world.
The Slum Studio share the process of creating new garments from global clothes waste in Gallery 2. The influx of discarded, second hand clothes from charities in the West have inundated Accra. Through creativity and reimagining the potential of this material, Slum Studio have reworked, renewed, restored the life cycle of these clothes.
In Gallery 3, Dillon Marsh introduces us to the five zones of vegetation on the Rwenzori Mountains, which translates to “rain maker”. Forty-three glaciers were recorded in this area when it was first surveyed in 1906, now less than half that number remain. The warming climate and the shrinking number of glaciers directs us to think more clearly about the future and what else will be lost.