We are proud to announce the acceptance of seven new documentary projects for Blue Earth sponsorship since January 2014.
Everyone at Blue Earth, including our members without whom Blue Earth would not exist, wishes to congratulate our new project photographers! We very much look forward to working together to further their efforts to educate the public about these pressing issues. We invite you to visit each project page to view a gallery of the work, read in detail about the project concept, and to learn about the sponsored artist.
Join us at Collaborations for Cause where case studies from two of the projects will be presented – Tim Matsui for Leaving the Life, and Matt Eich for Sin & Salvation in Baptist Town.
“Leaving The Life is a multi-platform initiative to facilitate a collective action-oriented dialogue around the crisis of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking of children in the US. After working fifteen years on issues related to trauma and victimization, first with sexual violence and now with various forms of human trafficking, both in the US and abroad, multimedia journalist and producer Tim Matsui has embarked in an innovative long-term effort.”
Sin & Salvation in Baptist Town – Matt Eich
“Since early 2010 I have returned to the town of Greenwood, Mississippi to explore the contemporary race and class disparity in this historically divided community. In a city of 15,505, 50.9 percent of the black residents live below the poverty line while just 15 percent of the whites do. The real legacies of racism in the South continue to impact people economically and culturally, in persistent and often pernicious ways. By visually introducing neighbors to one another in an honest and intimate way, my goal is to foster understanding and dispel uncertainty and fear.”
Salvation Fish – Paul Colangelo
“Salvation Fish is a three-pronged project with the goal of raising the public profile and scientific knowledge of eulachon. Eulachon is a small herring-like fish whose importance to the coastal First Nations and ecosystems cannot be overstated. Yet even after suffering devastating declines since the 1990s, they remain largely unknown because they are not part of a commercial fishery and they lack the charisma needed to capture our imagination.”
Upper Mustang – Filippo Mutani
“Upper Mustang is also known as a “Tibet outside the Tibetan Border.” It resisted the Chinese invasion and it has been the base for the C.I.A. financed guerrilla against China during the sixties. The last King reigned until 2008, and he still lives in Lo Manthang. Being forbidden to foreigners until 1992, the Mustang is also the last Tibet enclave because it has managed to preserve original tibetan culture and buddhism practically untouched since the middle age.“
“Three extra millimeters of water every year will make land vanish. It will swallow communities. It will change environmental habitats forever. For townspeople along the inner-coastal region of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, the impact of sea level rise is no longer an abstract worry debated by politicians. They see the land becoming more saturated beneath their feet.“
“In Chester, Pa, families are seeking justice and yearning for ways to heal. With one of the highest homicide rates in the country, the city has sustained unresolved loss of hundreds of lives over the last twenty years. This work aims to restore fragile memories and forge pathways to justice, healing, and restitution for the families of Chester.”
Wolf Haven – Annie Marie Musselman
“In the wake of the exotic animal trade, a sanctuary exists in Washington State where wolves are rescued from private owners, roadside zoos, animal collectors, and research facilities and are brought to a place where they receive a lifetime of compassionate care. The animals at Wolf Haven are treated with the utmost dignity and respect, including being given large enclosures to roam and also a partner to cohabitate with.”
We will be holding an open call for new project submissions January 2015.