Tabish KhanPhotographs Confront Us With How Much We Waste★★★★★5Turkana women get water for people and cattle from a twenty meters deep, homemade borehole, in Kaitede village, in Kenya. Image courtesy Stefano De Luigi and Syngenta Photography AwardA family lies surrounded by the litter they create in seven days. Image courtesy Gregg Segal and Syngenta Ahotography AwardA massive pile of refuse in Leeds. Image courtesy Mandy Baker and Syngenta Photography AwardChildren with makeshift floats in Smokey Mountain in Manila - a Philippine community that builds their houses with found items. Image courtesy Lasse Bak Mejlvang and Syngenta Photography AwardIn Dhaka various factories and industries are still being set up along the river. Chemicals discharged by tanneries, sewage and industrial waste are also dumped directly into the water. Image courtesy Rasel Chowdury and Syngenta Photography AwardFactory run-off fills a dried up lake in a juxtaposition of tradition with industrialisation in Beijing. Image courtesy Souvid Datta and Syngenta Photography AwardAn abandoned chair in California. Image courtesy Marcus Doyle and Syngenta Photography AwardThe hazardous pollution of Shanghai, China. This was the overall winner of the open competition. Image courtesy Benedikt Partenheimer and Sygenta Photography Award This picture was taken in Uummaannaq, a mysterious island north of Greenland. The island is home to an isolated Inuit people. This picture was taken in the town’s waste sorting center, located on an ice field very close to locals' homes, where the waste burnt in open air is responsible for a significant “dioxin” pollution. Image courtesy Camille Michel and Sygenta Photography AwardWomen of Tharpakar in the southern Sindh Province of Pakistan work together to pull water from a well. This was the overall winner of the professional competition. Image courtesy Mustafah Abdulaziz and Syngenta Photography AwardA deserted island development in Dubai. Image courtesy Richard Allenby-Pratt and Syngenta Photography AwardA massive car logistics factory in Dubai. Image courtesy Richard Allenby-Pratt and Syngenta Photography Award
Londonist Rating:★★★★★
The Syngenta Photography Award looks to address significant global issues with its annual theme; last year was the division between urban and rural living, and in 2015 it's the ever topical issues of scarcity and waste. Thousands of entries have been whittled down to just 40 exceptional photographers.
The result combines aesthetically beautiful images, such as as the sweeping curves of solar panels in the Nevada desert, to the distressing image of a dead giraffe slumped in an empty riverbed; all the while looking at how we use our resources and the consequences of these actions.
Photographs cover both the developing and the developed world — a 10-year-old Mexican child hospitalised with morbid obesity highlights that having too much can be as bad as having too little.
The strongest works in the exhibition are those that bring the issue of waste close to home, such as a garden in Bromley dwarfed by a 40-foot-tall rubbish heap towering over the neighbourhood's trees. It's also shocking to discover that 140 litres of water is needed to make a cup of coffee, and that 1.6 million tonnes of perfectly edible vegetables are thrown away every year, just because they aren't cosmetically pleasing.
This is a perfect combination of powerful images with an important message about how wasteful humans can be, the consequences of industrialisation and our inefficient use of resources.
