Foam Magazine #64 EXTREMES: The Environmental Issue

Foam Magazine is an international photography magazine published three times a year by Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam. 

The Environmental Issue looks at the complexities of today’s human-nature relationship through two different lenses. One half focuses on abundance and the other half, featured on the flip side of the magazine, on scarcity. We invite readers to look from both extremes, while acknowledging that everything is interconnected.

Industrialisation, overpopulation, consumerism versus scarcity, inequality, and the destruction of vital habitats: we address the divergences of the Anthropocene and how photography exposes them. One side of the magazine dives into the growth, the excess, the waste, the overproduction, the overconsumption that drive the Anthropogenic engine to continue grinding. The other side shows the impact, the disintegration, and the lack of connection to nature and native knowledge, capturing the decrease in different ways. The magazine will serve as an agent and a messenger to raise awareness, reflection, and debate around a topic that is of the utmost importance to us all.

The magazine includes portfolios with compelling narratives of 16 remarkable artists and a splendid array of essays by thinkers and practitioners alike. The essays featured in this issue delve into ways to create a planet that is sustainable and habitable for future generations. Wanda Nanibush, for instance, speaks about the notions of radical inclusivity and relationality from Indigenous cultures and the destruction of land caused by extractive economies. The interdisciplinary collective Planetary Portals nudges the vision into the future with their use of artificial intelligence as a tool to create new connections to decolonial futures. In the featured section, Vince Aletti interviews Sunil Gupta, highlighting Gupta's exceptional storytelling skills — all enveloped with candid portraits taken by Charan Singh. Finally, we look at a thought-provoking shelf of books curated by Demet Yıldız Dinçer and two catch-ups with the previous Foam Talent alumni, Breno Rotatori and Sara Cwynar, featuring their brand-new works.