The visualization and caption could do more to really render the various dimensions of toxicity in this space. It’s not explicitly mentioned.
I wonder what it looks like from all sides? From different vantage points? After adding more to the caption it might help to think about the focus of the image more: would it help to have mor of a close up of the actual earth? The line between newly cleared and not cleared? To focus in on the people and conversations in the photo? To blur certain parts of the photo? Right now, my focus is on the people in the center of the photo. Is that what you want it to be?
The image is a photograph taken by the contributor. The frame is interesting because it looks very much like a sort of ethnographer’s eye sort of view. It’s from a very positioned vantage point at the corner. Inside the tape? There’s a clear juxtaposition between the green and lush vegetation and the barren, newly cleared land.
The caption should be extended. Some questions/comments to think about”Describe in more detail the process of demining.Historicize the land a bit more. Brief history that led to the point of the deminig.Politicization around the demining of this area?Background of how certain areas are picked for deminig?More information on the removal of vegetation.Just think more information needs to be added on this to start to complicate things more and get at some of the messy layers.
This image complicates how we view contamination and toxicity. By “ridding” the land of one contaminant, a toxic deforestation occurs, changing the environmental landscape. The photo almost plays a visual mindtrick. I’m used to seeing these photos in environmental magazines where the barren land represents the logging industry or palm oil industry and can quickly see that the barren = bad, but the equation is not so easy here.
This image conveys the various toxicities involved in what one might assume to be a particularly neutral or nontoxic process--the process of demining. The areas lush and green are, in fact, the still contaminated areas with landmines, while the clear barren land is cleared of those contaminants. This photo complicates the way contamination is imagined in this particular area and process of demining.
