"Alice, Stanley and Najin, Kenya"
pigmentbased inkjet print on Hahnemühle Museum Etching
lable signed, dated, numbered and titled on verso
The themes in Nick Brandt’s photographic series always relate to the destructive impact that humankind is having on both the natural world and now humans themselves too.
"The Day May Break" is an ongoing global series portraying people and animals that have been impacted by environmental degradation and destruction. Chapter One of The Day May Break was photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya in 2020. The people in the photos have all been badly affected by climate change - some displaced by cyclones that destroyed their homes, others such as farmers displaced and impoverished by years-long severe droughts. The photographs in Chapter One were taken at five sanctuaries and conservancies. The animals here are almost all long-term rescues, as a result of everything from poaching of their parents to habitat destruction. These animals can never be re-released back into the wild. As a result, it was safe for human strangers to be close to them, photographed together in the same frame at the same time. The fog is the unifying visual, symbolic of a once-recognizable natural world now rapidly fading from view. Created by fog machines on location, the fog is also an echo of the smokefrom wildfires, intensified by climate change, devastating so much of the planet. However, in spite of their loss, these people and animals are the survivors. And therein lies hope and possibility.
In the picture Alice and Stanley Mwangi with there child Najin. Floods destroyed Alice and Stanley’s house in central Kenya in 2017. They were too frightened to stay in case more floods came in the future. They had a little money to start a new life, so they moved to Nanyuki and looked for a small house. Initially, they were only able to find menial jobs like washing cars and tilling land. Stanley now works as an electrician and Alice does laundry.
(Nick Brandt, www.nickbrandt.com)
Read more about the project in an essay by Nick Brandt