Future Studies

Luca Locatelli‘s award-winning Future Studies series serves to strengthen awareness concerning the fundamental, environmental questions of the 21st century. The central issues relate to agriculture and the future of food production, the expansion of cities, the reduction of garbage, and solutions for efficient environmental services, as well as future supplies of renewable energies. From amid this diversity of subjects and mass of motifs, the selection Locatelli submitted to the LOBA focussed primarily on food issues and the opportunities related to the energy turnaround. Virtually all the pictures were taken in Europe, because, “when you start to dig, looking for possible solutions and the most promising examples of how to confront climate issues, you discover that the north of Europe, in particular, is really like another world. The epicentre is in Europe”. This reality took the photographer to Iceland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Great Britain.

In 2015, he also spent two months in Germany on assignment for National Geographic, documenting the energy turnaround. He was carrying a Leica S in his bag for the first time. “It was a huge assignment. One of the most industrialized countries in the world has a government scheme based on ‘let’s change the way we produce energy’ – with all the errors, mistakes and struggles that implies. I was impressed. I visited coal mines where traditional energy is produced, as well as innovators. It wasn’t always easy to get a licence, or to simply jump into a helicopter or climb onto a wind turbine in the middle of the North Sea.” His impressive images are so much more than just documentation; their clear compositions and strong colour schemes offer unusual insight into places that are otherwise inaccessible.

Locatelli sees his work as a contribution towards the necessary debate regarding how we want to live in the future. He is convinced that proper progress and real development can only happen with a minimum of impact on the environment: “A typical symptom of the times we live in, is the growing feeling of the loss of a better future, a hypothetical tomorrow that is perceived as something full of promise yet also unknown. Never before have we had such an opportunity to reflect on what our attitudes should be in the future as we have had during this difficult time of Covid-19, which has brought the world to a standstill. This allows us to consider what our efforts must be in order to re-establish a healthy relationship with nature and the planet.“ 

You can find the series and further information in the LFI issue 8/2020.