Nick Brandt: Sink / Rise, The Day May Break: Chapter Three

SINK / RISE is the third chapter of The Day May Break, an ongoing global series portraying people and animals that have been impacted by environmental degradation and destruction.

This third chapter focuses on South Pacific Islanders impacted by rising oceans from climate change. .

The local people in these photos, photographed underwater in the ocean off the coast of the Fijian islands, are representatives of the many people whose homes, land and livelihoods will be lost in the coming decades as the water rises..

Everything is shot in-camera underwater..





EDITED FRAGMENTS FROM FLOODWATERS
Foreword by Zoe Lescaze, Author of Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past :

“Faced with a seemingly impossible task, Nick Brandt has created a profoundly original body of work, one that represents an entirely new approach to climate-conscious photography….

Although they are several meters below the surface, the subjects of Brandt’s mesmerizing photographs do not float or swim. Incredibly, they sit on sofas, stand on chairs, use seesaws, and pose in ways they might on land. The effect is otherworldly, as though the familiar laws of physics have stalled in this strange, liminal zone between land and sea.”

Sit with these photographs and the others in the series, and the subjects’ expressions will change like water. Stoicism becomes resignation. Frustration becomes resolve. In their pensive faces, we can read tenderness, grief, and perseverance. Intimate and spare as these portraits are, the effect is expansive.

Despite the surreal, semi-theatrical settings in which these portraits occur, Brandt’s images are direct, uncluttered, and free from distractions. This combination of ambitious fantasy and exquisite restraint is a signature of Brandt’s work rarely seen elsewhere.

The photographs comprising SINK / RISE are remarkable in their ability to be simultaneously approachable and enigmatic, to be political and inclusive. They invite us to linger, to look harder, and to go deeper. With every return, there is something new to discover— within the images or within us.

With the portraits in SINK / RISE, Brandt gives us a vital means of considering what we all stand to lose.”






The Day May Break
The Day May Break (2021-2023) is an ongoing global series portraying people and animals that have been impacted by environmental degradation and destruction.

Chapter One was photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya in 2020, Chapter Two in Bolivia in 2022.

Chapter Three was photographed in Fiji in 2023.

In Chapters One and Two, the people in the photos have all been badly affected by climate change, from extreme droughts to floods that destroyed their homes and livelihoods. The photographs were taken at several sanctuaries and conservancies.

The animals are almost all long-term rescues, victims of everything from habitat destruction to wildlife trafficking.

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

Brandt has had solo gallery and museum shows around the world, including New York, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Paris and Los Angeles.

All the series are published in book form.
The Day May Break
The Day May Break, Chapter Two
Sink / Rise, The Day May Break: Chapter Three

Born and raised in London, where he originally studied Painting and Film, Brandt now lives in the southern Californian mountains.

In 2010, Brandt co-founded Big Life Foundation, a non-profit in Kenya/ Tanzania that employ more than 300 local rangers protecting 1.6 million acres of the Amboseli/Kilimanjaro ecosystem.
Exclusive Interview with Nick Brandt About The Day May Break
www.nickbrandt.com
@nickbrandtphotography