Dzerzhinsk, Russia. 2006. Photo Credit: Google Earth/Terra Images
We have become accustomed to looking at our earth from space. Seldom do we consider the remarkable significance of such perspective. The technology that makes it all possible, the aesthetics of the frame from miles above the planet, and the meaning and context of what we are privileged to view -- are all signs of things.
From the perspective of space, one might not guess that what they are looking at is a stretch of the most polluted real estate on earth -- Dzerhinsk, Russia. Decades of industrial chemical waste makes Dzerzhinsky a toxic hell, with ground water reportedly 17 million times more contaminated than anything considered safe to consume.
Barry Lopez, in an article for National Geographic on Bernhard Edmaier's "Cold Scapes" aerial images," observes:
"The world is beautiful, in many unfathomable ways. In our hurrying through, we frequently miss what is beautiful around us, in the same way that we forget from time to time what we want our lives to mean. Just to stay afloat in the modern world, many of us reluctantly choose detachment from the constant stimulus. We even turn away from beauty, as if it were another thing we had had too much of."
Lopez is right. We have created a culture of detachment, but not just of all things beautiful. What is beautiful, for instance, about looking down omnisciently on Dzerhinsk with a god's eye knowing that human behaviors have contributed so terribly to the destruction of our enironment.
When I view, from above, the lace-like patterns of rivers swirling near Dzerhinsk against the mottled tones of greens and browns there is indeed beauty in the image. However, to simply conclude that this beauty exists without a context leaves me detached and in denial of the realities. To interpret such an image without digging deeper into the human conditions of life on the surface leads only to greater obfuscation.