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GIDEON MENDEL: DROWNING WORLD

AUGUST 31, 2018 - DECEMBER 9, 2018

a man and his mother standing waist high in water in front of a garage door
© GIDEON MENDEL. Terrance McKeen with his mother, Gloria, Black Creek, Middleburg, FL USA Spetember 2017.
a boy standing in dirty water against a pink wall
© GIDEON MENDEL, Vilian Sousa de Silva, Taquari District, Rio Branco, Brazil, March 2015. C-print, 47 1/4 x 47 1/4 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
a room with curtains and water filling the floor
© GIDEON MENDEL, From the Home of John Jackson,Toll Bar Village, South Yorkshire, UK, June 2007. Photograph. Courtesy of the artist.
a destroyed image of a woman
© GIDEON MENDEL, Found amidst wreckage, Tacloban, The Philippines, November 2013. Photograph. 47 1/4 x 35 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
a woman standing in thigh-deep water
© GIDEON MENDEL, Georgia Winegart, San Marco neighbourhood, Jacksonville, Florida, USA, September 2017. C-print, 27 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

In 2017, the State of Florida was ravaged by Hurricane Irma, the strongest hurricane on record to exist in the open Atlantic region. Jacksonville and the surrounding areas were profoundly affected not just by the fierce winds and rain, but also specifically by flooding; devastation which is still being felt by our community today. Internationally renowned photographer Gideon Mendel was invited to visit Jacksonville and the region in the immediate aftermath of Irma, and the images he captured at that time are not only a tribute to his ongoing project, Drowning World, but also bear testimony to a shared human tragedy in the wake of natural disasters and a shared culpability in the face of climate change.

On display for the first time in the United States is Mendel's 5-channel video, Deluge, which is a culmination of his ten years of work on the Drowning World project, shooting video and stills in thirteen different countries. It depicts a variety of individual stories, positioned with a synchronous global narrative in a way that is both personally intimate and deeply political. Deluge was produced with support from the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville; Kyotographie 2018; the University of Michigan, Institute for the Humanities Gallery; FotoFest Houston.

Opening Reception: Thursday August 30, 2018

ARTISTS

portrait of Gideon Mendel

GIDEON MENDEL

Photographer Gideon Mendel was born in 1959 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He studied Psychology and African History at the University of Cape Town and began working in photography in 1984 during some of the darkest days of apartheid. His experience helped to define his lifelong approach to photography-engaging creatively with social and political issues. In the early 1990s, he moved to London and continued to create politically charged artwork including his longitudinal project on the impact of HIV/AIDS, Through Positive Eyes. Since 2007, Mendel has been occupied with Drowning World, an art and advocacy project about flooding that is his personal response to climate change.

Photo by Gowhar Fazili.