Toxic Trespass


  • Photographer
    Giles Clarke
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    Getty Images Reportage
  • Date of Photograph
    2015

Toxic Trespass represents the culmination of seven years work on the ground with The Bhopal Medical Appeal. The aim is to expose the ongoing suffering, now entering a third generation, caused by the 1984 Bhopal Gas Disaster and compounded by the ongoing chemical contamination of local drinking water. The project is designed to accompany a ground-breaking epidemiological study, carried out by our NGO, and we expect this work to elevate the campaign on to the global stage. Suraj Pratap Singh, the child pictured in the fourth image of this series, passed away shortly after this series was shot. He was 20 years old. His parents were both gas affected victims.

Story

'Toxic Trespass' was commissioned in 2015 by The Bhopal Medical Appeal in London as part of an awareness campaign designed to raise funds for The Chingari Children Rehabilitation Clinic located in Bhopal, India. The specialized therapy and rehabilitation clinic has just over 750 children registered - most of whom are severely disabled having been born to parents contaminated by a carcinogenic and mutagenic water supply. December 2nd, 2015 marked the 31st anniversary of the 1984 Union Carbide gas tragedy that killed up to 10,000 of the citizens of Bhopal within 72 hours and, has gone on to claim, in total, over 25,000 lives to date. The original site of the heavily-polluted pesticide plant was never cleared up and remains, as referred to by Greenpeace, one of the world's 'toxic hotspots'. Thousands families have, for decades, been using water contaminated with toxic chemicals as their primary supply leading to serious illnesses, including cancers, and a spate of birth defects in their children. The title refers to scholar-activist Sandra Steingraber's concept of toxic trespass, in which "chemicals that are suspected or known to be linked to cancer or reproductive problems; neurological poisons that are entering our bodies because we're breathing or we're drinking or we're eating food and we haven't consented to their presence being there." The photographer has returned and documented the aftermath in Bhopal for the past 7 years with The Bhopal Medical Appeal.

Suraj Pratap Singh, the child pictured in the fourth image of this series, passed away shortly after this series was shot. He was 20 years old. His parents were both gas affected victims.

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