All About Photo is pleased to present Black Diamond by Sebastian Sardi. Part of the exclusive online showroom developed by All About Photo, this exhibition is on view for the month of May 2022 and includes eighteen photographs from the series Black Diamond.
It is an apocalyptic landscape. There are huge man-made craters everywhere that make up the visible landscape, the ground is burning, and a vast area is oozing with toxic gases, fire, and smoke. Amongst all of this, there are men, women, and children digging in the soil with their bare hands. Coal is mined everywhere in Jharkhand, India, and large parts of it are sorted by hand. The locals call it Kalaheera, or Black Diamond. The energy produced by the burning of coal is the single biggest contributor to the man-generated carbon dioxide emissions on this planet. Coal is a major part of the issue of global warming. In Jharkhand, many people have been forced away from their lands when companies and authorities recognized the richness that hides in the ground. Underground fires force people to relocate. The mining companies claim they are unable to put out the fires, while the locals blame the companies for letting the fires burn so the coal can be reached and excavated from underneath their villages.
There is a fragile balance between nature and mankind. A sense of discomfort is felt in the slow but seemingly unavoidable struggle toward the collapse of nature. The human inability to break patterns is painstakingly visible in these photographs, as we knowingly keep on extracting the ground beneath our own feet. Black Diamond is a close (self-)portrait of the people who work extracting coal from the ground to supply the ever-growing demands.
More info: all-about-photo.com
