Climate activists and experts have called for more emphasis on visualisation to tackle climate change.
This was on Wednesday at the See Change: Visualising the Urban Climate Crisis’ exhibition opening at the Uganda Museum.
The exhibition which was organised by FOTEA , in partnership with the University of Leeds, UK, brought together emerging and established photographers who took part in a masterclass to explore new ways of visually representing climate change from different perspectives.
Speaking at the event, Dr. Neil Crawford, a research fellow in climate action, University of Leeds, said climate change seems a difficult topic to talk about as many assume it requires a technical language and an in depth natural science understanding.
He, however, highlighted that through image visuals, it becomes a bit easy to understand the climate change talk as photography makes it easier to reflect and understand the change in climate patterns throughout the past years.
Crawford added that through visualisation, more Ugandans will be engaged in the climate change conversation which will help in addressing the crisis.
“Talking about those ways, I think people can actually engage in the topics and I think if we can start talking in those terms, pretty enough everyone can engage in climate change conversation,” Crawford said.
Miriam Watsemba, a documentary photographer, said that considering we are living in an era of technology, photography is very important because it is both powerful and accessible to more people.
“So, the more we put up stories about climate change, we make the issue more salient in the community, we make it an important issue because people are seeking it everyday, we are setting the agenda, we are framing the narratives and we are normalising the stories about climate change,” Watsemba said.
She added that the more those climate change stories are shared, the more they become important to people.
“Because when people know that something is important, they can take it seriously and I think the journalists, the media and photographers have a big role to play to in regards to normalising the conversation on climate change in Uganda,” she said.
The exhibition featured the work of ten photographers from Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria.