Protests are being held the world over against ecological devastation caused by mindless littering and unabated pollution. Unfortunately, these protests do little to prick the conscience of the perpetrators, since they are not hard-hitting enough.
However, here’s a Belgian-Beninese photographer named Fabrice Monteiro, who has taken upon himself to highlight the global issues of ecological devastation in his own inimitable style through the medium of photos displayed on the social media and many websites on the internet.
Fabrice Monteiro ‘The Prophecy’ series, which took two years to complete, is an amalgamation of striking images of spiritual personalities, haute couture, and staged settings of pollution and decimation. The focus of ‘The Prophecy’ project is to highlight Earth’s degradation due to all kinds of pollution. He has collaborated with Doulsy, a Senegalese fashion designer, to stage it. And he has set all this up in Africa.
Instead of clicking polluted rivers, seas, earth, and air in a conventional manner, Monteiro infuses a human element into it. For example, he makes models dress like the children of the Earth Goddess, Gaia in costumes designed to look like an environmental ruin and refuse. He freely uses trash and pollutants, such as plastic bags, discarded fishing nets, and other consumer debris to design gowns, headdresses and other accessories.
The project, consisting of 13 photographs is currently on display at the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin, USA. This project was deliberately selected for their exhibition ‘Interrogating the Plantationocene by the Chazen director, Amy Gillain and other professors of the University of Wisconsin “for the compelling way in which the photographs provoke critical conversations about issues central to the seminar.”
Monteiro has succeeded in achieving the unique feat of combining photojournalism with fashion photography. Little wonder his work is becoming popular on the internet and people have also started following Fabrice Monteiro Instagram.
Fabrice Monteiro: Website | Instagram
Via: Colossal
