An exhibition in Vienna tells the side effects of photography on the environment
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Photography knows how to shock, how to terrify. The images of wars, poverty, devastation strike and leave their mark. The same goes for the photos that become a punch in the stomach when they recall the reality of climate change: the desert scenes of what used to be bodies of water, the floods, the garbage that invades the ocean shores, the retreating glaciers. All the environmental drama of our times is documented through the photographic lens. But photography itself, how sustainable is it? What is the contribution of photography production to man-made climate change? The exhibition is based on these questions Mining Photographyopen to the public until May 29, in the halls of the Kunsthaus of Viennathe first “green” museum in the Austrian capital.
How much photography pollutes
From the copper used for the first daguerreotypes, to the rare earths and cobalt present in cellphones with which digital images are produced, photographic production has never been able to do without exploiting the soil. It has always been like this. At the dawn of the history of photography, around the middle of the 19th century, Paris was an important production center for daguerreotype plates: Approximately 100 tonnes of copper was used annually, which was mainly worked in Swansea, Wales, using three to four times its own weight of coal. The working conditions for those who took care of them were precarious, theimpact on the environment huge. After the advent of gelatin-silver prints on paper, in the late 20th century thephotographic industry became the most important consumer of silver, accounting for more than half of global consumption.
