Two juxtaposed images by the author - the caption also underlines the inherent contradiction in those two statements, particularly when contrasted with the photo of the girl with the respiratory device. The right-hand image invites the author to look at the soil and to wonder what the impact is on the soil of the oil extraction. It seems oddly devoid of anything in the foreground.
I do not understand this question. I cannot provide an answer to this.
I think that this image could be improved in terms of addressing directly what it has to say about toxics and toxic places, which Andrea explains in brief in the introduction. It would be helpful to elaborate this in more detail in the caption. Although it does not examine this directly, the author is drawing attention to the toxicity of living in a place wedded both to bodily experienced living, and oil extraction which contravenes this living.
This visualization shows an apparently normal landscape with two children walking in a rural community in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest., One of them carries a plastic bag, a close up of its contents at the bottom right corner shows respiratory equipment and medicines directly. It shows how daily life of this indigenous community is toxified, even though we are geographically located at what is often thought of as a pristine biodiverse location or one of the world’s most important oxygen-producing sites.
The caption points to this contradiction between “toxic/non-toxic” frontiers. It would be helpful to know more about the origin of these respiratory diseases, how frequent they are in the community, and how people make sense of the ambiguous (and unsettling) way of life at the “border” between the deeper/cleaner forest and growing accustomed to external resources/schools/hospitals that were also part of the government’s “development” plan.
This is an original photographic composition created by the author, which contains two photographs. The first allows us to observe a landscape in transformation contrasted by two children at the center of what is described as an oil-road with a plastic bag, which is shown on the second image. This second, smaller size image, shows the contents of the bag through a zoom of the devices and medicines that were carried by the children. This together with the ethnographic message reveals that this the toxic result of a resistance to the toxicity itself.
Although at first sight, the image shows the direct link among children, devices and medicines, it might be helpful to put one or two more, smaller size pictures, showing the devices in use.
The visualization talks about toxicity’s side effects. One of the most poignant aspects is the direct relationship the caption points to between toxic roads, resistance to that very toxicity, and its health side effects in children's lives in what is supposed to be one of the world’s most “clean air” locations.
It shows the tensions in toxic places - children are not even safe from air pollution when in the Amazon - what some people might consider to be the lungs of the world!
