Thirst

Balazs Gardi

VII Network

A drunken sheep shearer lays on the pavement in front of a pub in New South Wales, Australia. As more than 10,000 Australian farming families have had to leave their land as a result of the country's ongoing drought and as the number of farmers has dropped by a third in just 20 years and the number of suicides amongst them is alarmingly rising. THIRST Water is life, and since the earliest days of human civilization, it has also been the source of conflict. As global supplies of fresh water diminish, and human population grows, the tensions surrounding access to water are rapidly amplifying. Today, one third of the world’s population lives in water-stressed areas, and that statistic is expected to double within the next 25 years. Shrinking tropical forests, evaporating lakes, and the accelerating melting and cracking of the polar ice caps are only a few of the alarming harbingers of impending crises. My project aims to examine the lives of people directly impacted by these developments, to search for solutions and coping strategies, and to encourage reflection on an issue of global scale that requires concerted local action. This selection is covering a range of issues from Australia’s developed economy that is suffering its worst droughts on record and its consequences, to India where floods and inadequate water supply system, the lack of sanitation make the life of millions impossible, to the shocking waste of clean water at the sprawling developments of Persian Gulf kingdoms.

Balazs Gardi, "Thirst," in POYi Archive, Item #42629, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/42629 (accessed June 17, 2025).