honorable mention
Thomas Byczkowski germany
title
No water, no future: The Refugees of Rio Doce
For roughly a year until August 2020 I travelled along the river to document the fate of the people there: Who are they and how do they cope with the aftermath of the disaster?
1) Delcina collects rainwater and stores it in plastic canisters as her own private reservoir, because she is thinks that the water sold to the victims by the mining company is in fact toxic water from Rio Doce.
2) Cultivating a small island in the poisoned Rio Doce, Joelma has to water all fruits and vegetables with toxic water. She sells her produce on the market as there is no other way for her to feed her family of four.
3) Antonio was a professional fisherman before the dam break. But the mining company denies him and his family a compensation. For five years now his boat has seen no water under the keel.
4) Diary farmer Marino and his son Artur lost their livelihood in the mud-catastrophy. For five years now the family battles in a rented house to get a compensation as they suffer from depression hypertension and diabetes.
(51), is a photographer and journalist based in Hamburg, Germany.
His personal projects are driven by the search for the meaning of the German word „Heimat“ (home): Coming from a family of refugees himself, he is interested in how people cope, who lose everything to war or disasters. He is aware that effects of flight and expulsion can spill over generations, as his grandparents and parents fled during the Second World War, their traumata lasting until today.
Thomas’ last mayor project deals with refugees who arrived in Hamburg during the „refugee-crisis“ in 2015 and was published as photo-book „People - not Numbers“ by German Bertelsmann Foundation. After this two-year-work, he turned his attention to people whose lifes are threatened by globalization and now investigates the mining disaster at the river Doce in Brazil.
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entry description
The river: poisoned. The water: undrinkable. The people: desperate and depressed. Cities, villages and acres: inundated with toxic mud and dust, poisoned again and again every rainy season. That’s the situation five years after the fatal mining dam break at Rio Doce in Brazil that poisoned the river 620 km up to the Atlantic Ocean, creating the worst environmental disaster in Brazilian history. Nineteen people were killed immediately, entire fish populations eradicated and hundreds of hectares of land flooded, turning thousands of people into de facto refugees. With shady legal tricks the mining company forces the victims to negotiate for compensation themselves: fishermen, farmers and families facing this behemoth of a gigantic international mining conglomerate.For roughly a year until August 2020 I travelled along the river to document the fate of the people there: Who are they and how do they cope with the aftermath of the disaster?
1) Delcina collects rainwater and stores it in plastic canisters as her own private reservoir, because she is thinks that the water sold to the victims by the mining company is in fact toxic water from Rio Doce.
2) Cultivating a small island in the poisoned Rio Doce, Joelma has to water all fruits and vegetables with toxic water. She sells her produce on the market as there is no other way for her to feed her family of four.
3) Antonio was a professional fisherman before the dam break. But the mining company denies him and his family a compensation. For five years now his boat has seen no water under the keel.
4) Diary farmer Marino and his son Artur lost their livelihood in the mud-catastrophy. For five years now the family battles in a rented house to get a compensation as they suffer from depression hypertension and diabetes.
about the photographer
Thomas Byczkowski,(51), is a photographer and journalist based in Hamburg, Germany.
His personal projects are driven by the search for the meaning of the German word „Heimat“ (home): Coming from a family of refugees himself, he is interested in how people cope, who lose everything to war or disasters. He is aware that effects of flight and expulsion can spill over generations, as his grandparents and parents fled during the Second World War, their traumata lasting until today.
Thomas’ last mayor project deals with refugees who arrived in Hamburg during the „refugee-crisis“ in 2015 and was published as photo-book „People - not Numbers“ by German Bertelsmann Foundation. After this two-year-work, he turned his attention to people whose lifes are threatened by globalization and now investigates the mining disaster at the river Doce in Brazil.
back to gallery