White Man’s Burden 2.0

Photojournalist Sebastiao Selgado (left) presents a copy of his book, Trabalhadores, to former Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula de Silva.
Photojournalist Sebastiao Selgado (left) presents a copy of his book, Trabalhadores, to former Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula de Silva.

BY GABE RUBIN

Sebastião Salgado has a bit of a primitivist fetish. In his latest project, an expansive installation at Madrid’s Caixa Forum, the celebrated photojournalist tries to capture the Earth’s most breathtaking landscapes in places like the Sandwich Islands and the Amazon in order to draw attention to their fragility and impending destruction. Given his nearly unrivaled talents as a photographer, the fact that Salgado has chosen to devote his efforts to the cause of environmental activism should be applauded—if only the results weren’t so disturbingly Eurocentric and paternalistic.

Salgado calls his project “Genesis”—as in, the images you are about to see are God’s creation in its purest, most unadulterated, undeveloped state. That proposition is easy enough to accept for the first several rooms of the installation, surrounded by images of windswept polar tundra and close-ups of Antarctic mammals, seabirds sunning themselves and seals performing mating rituals. This is the Salgado the viewer came to see, with nary a cliché image, nothing that has ever appeared in a National Geographic spread or “Planet Earth” episode. Somehow, he makes the ubiquitous visage of a penguin seem novel, highlighting both the wonders of evolution and the risks of climate change.

The curators have organized the exhibition by continent, starting with Antarctica. It is when the visitor moves north to “Africa” that the exhibit takes a disturbing downturn. It’s a well known but rarely-acknowledged tendency of museum-goers to pay close attention to the first few items of an installation before their eyes glaze over and each item receives progressively less attention. Such is the case in the Africa section of Salgado’s exhibit, when the toll of several (however beautiful) hippopotami begins to set in. Suddenly, the visitor comes across the face of a human being, and is knocked out of his daydream. A human being? The first roughly 100 photographs have been animals or landscapes. But now, he comes face to face with two members of the Mursi tribe based in Ethiopia, which the curators have helpfully identified as a tribe with some of the “last people on Earth” to practice ritual facial mutilation.

The visitor moves forward through the exhibit, worried. The “Asia” and “Americas” galleries only confirm his suspicions: Salgado’s position, and the purpose of the exhibition, is to document the “last primitives” before they become extinct due to the nefarious forces of globalization and global warming.

Salgado’s thesis would be less problematic if he had, say, shown the other people endangered by climate change, from Dakar slum residents to natives of Far Rockaway, New York. Instead, he has chosen to showcase indigenous peoples as the sole desperate, voiceless, hopelessly outnumbered future victims of environmental disaster. Unless, of course, the White Man steps in to save them.

For those who find this critique too damning, I’d direct you to Salgado’s words, mounted on a wall at the end of the exhibition: “As well as displaying the beauty of nature, Genesis is a call to arms. We cannot continue polluting our soil, water, and air. We must act now to preserve unspoiled land and seascapes and protect the natural sanctuaries of ancient peoples and animals.”

Salgado presents humanity as bifurcated: the modern polluters on the one hand and the “ancient peoples” on the other. And, apparently, those peoples have as much agency as the animals with whom they cohabitate in these “natural sanctuaries” that Salgado has captured on camera. Salgado’s final words recall the same paternalistic language and ideas used throughout history to justify all manners of white action “on behalf” of marginalized groups.

As someone who claims to be a card-carrying member of the international Left, Salgado should know the implications of his thoughtlessly patronizing actions. In his widely debated essay, “The White Savior Industrial Complex,” written in response to the Kony 2012 craze, novelist Teju Cole posited, “The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.” Salgado’s exhibition serves that exact purpose. Essentially, by visiting his exhibition, and possibly donating 10 euros to the World Wildlife Fund, you have responded to Salgado’s “call to arms” and assuaged your conscience. Meanwhile, you’ll likely drive home from the exhibition and spend your evening destroying fragile ecosystems via your power-guzzling electronic devices.

Salgado’s exhibition proves that he, unfortunately, is simply a slightly refined version of Rudyard Kipling trumpeting the White Man’s Burden through aesthetically pleasing art. According to Salgado and Kupling’s line of thought, modern man has a responsibility to endangered wildlife and human beings (who, for his purposes, are really just wildlife), which he can fulfill by “being aware” and “acting now.” But upon leaving the exhibit, the visitor can’t help but ponder: does Salgado think indigenous people have more in common with the people paying to see his photos or with hippos?

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