An earth that yearns for water, cracked, and two naked feet, alone on the dry ground. The photograph, taken by Oliver Olivella, an 18-year-old Colombian, was one of the winning projects of the Voices4Climate competition, sponsored by the World Bank.
During an event last Friday in the World Bank’s headquarters in Washington, DC, 19 young people from 14 countries were awarded for their photographs, videos and podcasts on climate change.
Oliver was one of them. The young man from Cartagena de Indias, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, is a photography student in Bogota.
“I always considered that photography is a form of communication, a form of expression,” explains Oliver. He says about his photo that it is “simple, but it explains itself alone, by itself it explains the environment problem.”
A pond turns into a dump
Oliver took the photograph last year in a municipality near Cartagena, called Turbaco, where he lived for nine years. Parts of his family still lives there.
He lived very close to the place where he took the picture. They played there when they were children, says Oliver. “When I was little, I remember that a natural pond would form when it rained, and it was surrounded by many trees.”
