Location: Photoville Pavilion

Date: Saturday, September 19th

Time: 2:15PM-3:15PM

Presented by: VSCO

Featuring: Janos Pasztor (Moderator), Mustafah Abdulaziz, James Whitlow Delano

As the world faces global climatic change, photographers are using photography to tell stories and mobilize action. It is easy to ignore the magnitude of environmental impacts and climate change when people cannot see them on a daily basis. Digital channels and social media play an important role in bringing otherwise distant issues to the forefront. Photographers can now act as social change agents and visual storytellers, capturing the relationship between humans and natural resources in an evocative way that educates and promotes change from the ground up.

In effort to create direct dialogue between journalists and policy makers, photographers Mustafah Abdulaziz and James Whitlow Delano will discuss their ongoing photography projects on water and climate change with moderator, Janos Pasztor, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Climate Change. Each photographer will present their projects before engaging in a timely discussion around photography as a means for shifting the narrative on climate change, environmental solutions as well as individual and collective action.

Janos Pasztor is currently Assistant Secretary-General on Climate Change in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General (EOSG) of the United Nations in New York. A national of Hungary (and later also of Switzerland), he received his MS and BS degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Previously, his assignments included Policy and Science Director for Conservation at WWF International and Executive Secretary of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability.

Mustafah Abdulaziz b. 1986, New York City, USA. Lives in Berlin, Germany. His on-going project “Water” has received support from the United Nations, WaterAid, WWF, and VSCO, has been reviewed by Phaidon, Monopol and published in Der Spiegel, The New Yorker, TIME and The Guardian. Worked as the first contract photographer for The Wall Street Journal. In 2012, was named one of PDN’s 30 Emerging Photographers to Watch.

James Whitlow Delano has lived in Asia for over 20 years. His work has been awarded internationally: the Alfred Eisenstadt Award (from Columbia University and Life Magazine), Leica’s Oskar Barnack, Picture of the Year International, NPPA Best of Photojournalism, PDN and others for work from China, Japan, Afghanistan and Burma, etc. His first monograph book, Empire: Impressions from China was the first ever one-person show of photography at La Triennale di Milano Museum of Art. The Mercy Project / Inochi his charity photo book for hospice received the PX3 Gold Award and the Award of Excellence from Communication Arts. His work has appeared in magazines and photo festivals on five continents. His latest award-winning monograph book, Black Tsunami: Japan 2011 (FotoEvidence) explored the aftermath of Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear disaster. He’s a grantee for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, for work documenting the destruction of equatorial rainforests and human rights violations of indigenous inhabitants there. In 2015, Delano founded EverydayClimateChange Instagram feed.

A $1,000,000 USD grant and movement of solidarity that provides artists the resources to pursue their creative vision, no matter what the medium. The Initiative honors art and artist by discovering, funding, advising, and promoting creatives from all corners of the globe.