This week we talk to photographer, filmmaker and artist Richard Mosse, who spent two years documenting the desctruction of one of the most ecologically sensitive areas of the world, the Amazon Rainforest. Using infrared film, GIS mapping technologies, and ultraviolet cameras, Mosse explores every scale of the rainforest, from miscroscopic organisms to hectares of cleared land. On the human level, the film follows both the indigenous people who are trying to hold on to their way of life and the loggers, ranchers, and miners who are trying to carve out a living at the edge of the world. The result is an immersive, unflinching multichannel film called Broken Spectre.
Joining Non-toxic from his studio in New York, Richard discusses the best ways to get powerful men to let you film their crimes, why women bare the brunt of the Amazon's destruction, and whether there's anything an artist can do to try to avert catastrophe.
For more on the climate impacts of beef, listen to our conversation with journalist Joe Fassler from Season 1.
Guest Bio: Richard Mosse is an Irish artist currently based in New York. Documenting some of the most significant humanitarian and environmental crises of our time, his work has been the subject of solo shows at museums including The San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art, The National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and The Barbican Art Gallery in London, among others. For his groundbreaking work, Mosse has received the Prix Pictet 2017 Prize, the 2014 Deutcshe Börse Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He holds an MFA from Yale.
Links:
How American's love of beef is helping destroy the Amazon
What Jair Bolsonaro did to the Amazon
Brazilian president Lula pledges ‘new Amazon dream’ at rainforest summit
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