Celia Furt, The State Of Our Planet (LANDSCAPE 2022)

The state of our planet: it’s burning. It’s dying. It’s living. It’s sending toxic gas into the atmosphere. Yet, it’s beautiful. We must do everything we possibly can to avoid a global rise of 2º in the temperature across the century. ‘Flames In The Fog’: bleeding flames and black smoke coming out from the chimneys of a fractionation plant, in Victoria. Even though these flaring flames are for safety as they relief the pressure from the gas it feels like more toxic air is being thrown into the atmosphere, clouding our lungs and creating ‘The State Of Our Planet’ and ‘A Grim World’. ‘The State of Our Planet’: as I travelled around Mallacoota, I was directly confronted with the devastation caused by the 2019-2020 bushfires in East Gippsland. The cadavers of the burnt trees overlooking that halcyon beach greatly diminish the effect of "Oh I'm in paradise'. During these bushfires, 1.1 million hectares of land were burnt in East Gippsland. 170 rare or threatened species have lost more than 50% of their habitat. Therefore, our planet is living, burning, dying all at the same time. Still, it is beautiful. We live in a ‘Grim World’ because the temperature is rising globally, now huge fires, and hurricanes no longer come in summer but also in winter. Also, the financial, economic, and psychological consequences of how Sars-Cov-2 and its variants have been managed across the world have devastated humanity. But, like these mangroves, even though our scars have bended us a bit, we are strong and still standing.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.