Prix Pictet Photography Prize

Earth Catalogue

The catalogue was produced to accompany the Earth Commission. The Commission is an invitation for a photographer, chosen from the Prix Pictet shortlist, to produce a portfolio of images related to the theme of the award. For 2009 the theme was Earth, and Pictet & Cie chose to support the work of Azafady, a UK charity and Malagasy-registered NGO that helps the poorest communities in Madagascar develop sustainable ways of living. American photographer Ed Kashi was awarded the Commission to visit Madagascar.

This catalogue presents Kashi’s photographs that show the compromised beauty of this threatened island. The photographs are accompanied by texts from Ed Kashi, photographer and photojournalist; Samm Short, writer and Project Development Specialist working for Azafady; Helena Drysdale, author of Dancing with the Dead, a journey through Zanzibar and Madagascar; and Peter Aspden, Arts Writer at the Financial Times.

As the writer Helena Drysdale says in her catalogue essay these photographs chronicle a deteriorating situation, ‘In the south, the failure of the rains has speeded up the desertification. The Masoala Peninsula has become a national park, but this has not prevented the pillaging of the rainforests by illegal loggers – aided by French shippers and the Malagasy government – or the subsistence farmers’ slash and burn. Madagascar’s soil continues to bleed unquenched into the Indian Ocean, and the Great Red Island slowly but inexorably dies.’

Madagascar: A Land Out Of Balance