SINK / RISE

Pacific Island nations produce less than 0.03% of global greenhouse gas emissions but are among the most vulnerable to climate change. Some of these nations will become uninhabitable in as little as three decades, if the predicted average sea level rise of between 25-58 cm along Pacific Island shorelines is realized.

Photographer Nick Brandt gives these statistics a human face in ‘SINK / RISE’, the third chapter in a long-term series portraying people and animals that have been affected by environmental degradation and destruction. We asked him about the project and how the underwater setting allowed him to show climate change in a new and unexpectedly beautiful way.

Where did the idea for SINK / RISE come from?

As a result of climate breakdown, sea level rise will impact hundreds of millions of humans that live along coastlines and low-lying areas around the planet. For people who have lived in these places their entire lives, to abandon their homes and land, and often their livelihoods, will of course be deeply traumatizing as they search for a new – and likely very different and compromised – place to call home.

In terms of how I came up with the concept, I have no idea. I never know. [The ideas] just appear one day in my head as a result of my concern for the disintegrating state of our planet due to humankind. And then the challenge begins of how to execute that vision.

How did you choose your subjects?

We probably auditioned as many as 200 people from the local communities. At each casting session, they were asked to open their eyes, hold their breath underwater while casting photos were taken. Those people that looked like they would be sufficiently relaxed then had to undergo and pass a basic scuba training course with our divemaster team.

Several images include household items. Why is that?

They are just the most ordinary, everyday furniture – the table you eat at, the sofa or chair you sit on, the bed in which you sleep. Life going on as if normal, except of course, not. Even the seesaw – a symbol of childhood, innocent playtime – is arrested by these ominous circumstances.

What was the biggest challenge of shooting underwater?

Everyone expects that keeping people and objects weighed down was the greatest challenge. Certainly, there was a lot of trial and error, far more 5 and 10 kilo barbells bought than we ever imagined we would need, and some quite ingenious solutions to controlling people swaying uncontrollably in the tidal surges of water.

But actually, by far the biggest problem was, as always, the elements. On every previous shoot, it’s the weather that causes the biggest problems. This time, it was week after week of terrible visibility. I chose to shoot in April and May: in theory, after the rainy season, but before the water got too cold in the southern hemisphere winter. In theory, the amount of plankton in the water was meant to be reducing in intensity, creating more clear water. In reality, the opposite happened. As the shoot progressed towards May, the visibility actually got worse and worse. There was one period in May, due to an unseasonably massive torrential storm generating a huge amount of muddy freshwater runoff from the island’s rivers, the visibility was so bad that we were unable to shoot for nine long, expensive days.

How did the community respond to the project?

Incredibly positively. Firstly, in recognition of and agreement with the relevance of the subject matter to their own personal lives, and secondly, in the way they were on the shoot. On how many shoots and in how many places in the world would the cast, when no longer needed, voluntarily help the crew? Young and older, after I had finished photographing them, would invariably jump back in the ocean to enthusiastically help out. They held the fabric frames over our heads in place on the surface for long periods, and they free dived down from the boat to us with urgently needed extra weights and equipment. Long may they continue their lives with such joy.

The series was recently published in a book. How have viewers responded?

Well, I only hear the positive responses, so I can’t make a fair summary … However, I don’t want people to feel hopeless experiencing the work. I would not be making it if I felt that there was no hope. And in turn, I do want people to be stirred into action in whatever capacity. As I always say, it’s better to be angry and active than angry and passive. Action motivates and energizes you.

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