The Day May Break + Green Tech Festival Berlin

22 - 24th of June 2022

THE DAY MAY BREAK

BY NICK BRANDT

The Day May Break,  photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya in late 2020 and in Bolivia in March 2022 are the first parts of a global series portraying people and animals impacted by environmental degradation and destruction. 

The people are 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 were taken at sanctuaries or conservancies. The animals are almost all long-term rescues, victims of everything from the poaching of their parents to habitat destruction and poisoning. 

These animals can never be released back into the wild. As a result, they are habituated, and so it was safe for human strangers to be close to them, photographed together in the same frame.

The fog is the unifying visual. We increasingly find ourselves in a kind of limbo, a once-recognizable world now fading from view. The fog, created by fog machines on location, acts an echo of the suffocating smoke from the wildfires, driven 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 possibility and hope.

The Day May Break, and the earth may shatter.

Or The Day May Break…. and the dawn still come.

Humanity’s choice. 

Our choice.

This exhibition is organised in collaboration with Jaeger Art. Nick Brandt is represented by WILLAS contemporary. A percentage of the print-sale proceeds is evenly distributed on a biannual basis to each of the people photographed, as a kind of ongoing royalty payment. The Day May Break is a carbon-neutral project.

This exhibition is powered by MPB, the world’s largest platform to buy, sell and trade-in used photography and videography kit. MPB recirculates more than 300,000 items of used kit every year, extending the life and creative potential of photo and video equipment for creators around the world.

The Greentech Festival offers a space for mutual exchange and inspiration as well as a global platform under the same name. The aim is not only to inspire as many people as possible with green technologies and ideas for sustainable living but also to encourage them to take action themselves.

greentechfestival.com
mpb.com
nickbrandt.com