Environment
Faces of a Flood-Stricken World
Gideon Mendel’s portraits of flood victims, from Thailand to Germany to Haiti, reveal the personal devastation caused by natural disasters.
For several years, the South Africa-born, London-based photographer Gideon Mendel has been photographing floods around the world. His approach is not the standard photojournalistic one: Instead, arriving some time after the deluge, Mendel takes deeply personal portraits of individuals and families who are coming to terms with what they have lost. In many of his portraits, flood victims stand inside their homes, water lapping at their waists, their faces conveying shock, or sorrow, or determination.
In May 2016, an exhibition of Mendel’s photographs and videos called Drowning World will open at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. CityLab recently spoke with Mendel via Skype about his work.