Mathias Braschler & Monika Fischer: The Human Face of Climate Change

by  : Monika Fischer

Galvanized by the continued failure of world governments to act on the deterioration of our planet, and further spurred by surviving a near-fatal car crash, Swiss artists Mathias Braschler (born 1969) and Monika Fischer (born 1971) decided to make a tangible record of ecological collapse--of photographs to which one could point and say, "look: this is happening there." Their crusade began in February 2009, in southeastern Australia, during the hottest week in the country's recorded history (118 degrees), where the couple documented how farmers have seen their flocks and pastures die off amid increasing drought, brush fires and dust storms. Over the next year, Braschler and Fischer hauled their large-format cameras from drought-ridden Timbuktu to Siberia where the permafrost is now thawing, from Bangladesh to Lake Chad, photographing the inhabitants of forests, mountains, deserts and valleys, all of whom are experiencing the real effects of global warming and environmental collapse. In 2010 they were nominated by David Friend for Vanity Fair's "Hall of Fame" column, for their efforts. Much anticipated and widely lauded, the photographs in The Human Face of Climate Change put faces to climate change and offer an incontestable record of terrifying ecological realities.