Miruku focuses on the Wayuus an indigenous population from La Guajira, Colombia’s coastal desert. The project examines how a combination of climate change issues and human negligence has led its various members to experience a stifling water shortage. In the region, the problem is cyclical and polymorphous. While some communities can achieve certain stability during rainy seasons, temperatures are bound to rise drying up the land again. Global warming only aggravates this, causing droughts and famine, and spoiling the facilities and installations that help source clean water.
We framed the story from a feminine perspective to get a better understanding of how gender inequality and climate vulnerability interrelate. In the communities we visited, women are the most affected by the climate emergency. On one hand, the socioeconomic and racial discrimination they suffer intensifies the consequences that the water crisis has on their health, homes, and livelihoods. On the other, the power imbalance they endure as members of a patriarchal society makes them responsible for the daily challenge of providing water for the households they also run.
We sought to highlight the strength and resourcefulness of the Wayuu women as we find it inspiring that, even under such conditions, they have established themselves as community leaders, teachers, and climate activists. Through our diptychs, we wish to convey a visual balance between raw and lyrical documentation and achieve a nuanced portrayal of a multihued situation.
This project was made with Federico “Monty” Kaplan and was commissioned by Wateraid & 1854/British Journal of Photography as part of the Wateriad Climate Commission.