Photographers document people forced to leave home due to climate change
In 2009, Swiss photographers Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer set out to put faces to the environmental damage caused by rising global temperatures. Some 16 years later, the photographer-couple has followed up with “DISPLACED,” a portrait series examining the lives of those forced to move due to climate change. Host Marco Werman speaks to Braschler and Fischer about the people at the center of their project.
Two photographers from Switzerland are capturing the faces of people directly impacted by climate change. Through a series of portraits, Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer are trying to tell human stories about being forced to leave home because of storms, drought, fire, floods and rising seas.
“The first project we did in 2009 was called “The Human Face of Climate Change,” and we traveled for about a year to different countries to people who are directly affected by climate change,” Braschler told The World. “And the motivation to do this first project was from a previous project when we worked in China, for about nine months, shooting portraits of the Chinese all over the country before the 2008 Olympic Games. There, we just saw what happens if a country develops really, really fast. The destruction it can cause to nature [and] the environment. And, so, we got really interested in what it does to people.”
The name of their new project is called “DISPLACED.”
From Zurich, photographers Braschler and Fischer joined The World’s Host Marco Werman in a discussion about their work.
Marco Werman: So, Monika, in the past two years, as you’ve produced these portraits of people in this project that are displaced, whose stories really stood out to you as you kind of go back through those frames?
Monika Fischer: We met so many people. We visited 12 countries and met — everywhere — people who had to leave their homes or lost their homes because of climate change. Very impressive was in Kenya,[meeting the Turkana people], where the IOM brought us.
Marco Werman: That’s the International Organization for Migration.
Fischer: Exactly, International Organization of Migration. We had a collaboration with them. They helped us tremendously, also helping us get to know people on the ground and bringing us to places. And in Kenya, for example, the Turkana people in the north of the country have lost many animals due to ongoing droughts. The animals are dying, and they lose their tradition. So, what they are starting to do now is become farmers to settle. And with that comes a lot of loss of tradition as well. I mean hundreds, thousands of years of tradition, with climate change that happened over the last decade.
Mathias Braschler: One thing that I also find interesting is, I mean, of course, we went to these developing countries … poor people, they got really badly hit by climate change. But then again, here in Switzerland, not too far from where we live, an hour and a half drive away, we met a veterinarian who lost everything because of an incredibly heavy precipitation event. It was raining like never before. And in this mountain village of Briens, a little creek swelled to a crazy river that destroyed part of the village. And his house got really seriously damaged. I think that’s one of the interesting things to see. Like [Los Angeles], for example, as well, these effects are not just happening in remote places like Bangladesh, Kenya or Senegal. We’re in a stage now where highly developed countries like Switzerland, Germany or the US are also heavily affected.
So these are photos of people forced to leave their homes due to climate-related events. You were intentional about the subjects of your photos, posed studio-style against a pitch-black background, and interspersed this series of portraits with snapshots of the landscapes around their deserted homes. What was the intention behind these choices?
Fischer: Well, we brought this pop-up studio with us to all the destinations, wherever we met the people. For us, it was important to show it’s also about losing their roots, and we wanted to show everybody the same way. It’s a very universal problem all around the globe, and we wanted to give the same appearance and background to everybody. What’s also important is that we wanted to show the people in a strong, dignified way. It’s not just the victims. Migration to move on is also a way of adapting to climate change. It always has been a means of adapting to changing environments. But because climate change is accelerating so fast at the moment, it’s also an overwhelmingly big problem. But we wanted to show that people in their dignity and that they are strong and proud people that we met.
So these people have to adapt, but they are also losing what they know as home. Does home ever get reproduced once they’ve adapted?
Braschler: No, I don’t think so. It’s a long process. It’s really a long process. It just takes a lot of time, and certain things you lose forever. I think particularly also for people who go through these major disasters like hurricanes, wildfires or floods, they also lose some kind of security, like something that you take for granted. There’s some basic security that my house is gonna be okay. Where I live, it’s okay, my life is okay. If this is taken away from you by force, by nature, it takes something away from you, which I think is very hard to get back.
So, “DISPLACED” was produced in collaboration with the United Nations immigration and food security agencies. Monika, what do you hope people will take away from viewing these portraits in your project?
Well, our goal was to give the people who lost their homes a voice and a face. So we let them tell the story. And we hope that people can look into their eyes and listen to their stories. We also made a lot of videos about it, so we could hear how they tell the story. But I think very important is we know climate change is happening. We know it’s a huge problem. And still there’s so much going on, so much happening that it got into the background, in the daily life, for many people at the moment. And for us, it’s important to be a reminder that it is a huge issue and it’s also not going away. Climate change will be a huge issue in the future. We know a lot of solutions. And what we need, even us doing this project, is the reminder [of] what we do it for.
Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.
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