Life without Lights
- By Helen Craig -
- Feb 10, 2012
I've just visited the Life without Lights photography exhibition, created by Peter DiCampo. It explores the range of social and economic issues surrounding energy poverty, as well as showing some of the sustainable energy solutions offered by Ashden Award winners.
The exhibition focuses on villages in northern Ghana but the situation that is depicted is not uncommon. According to the International Energy Agency’s 2010 findings, 1.4 billion people live without access to electricity – this is one of the most critical issues contributing to poverty, and often the one that is least addressed.
It can be hard to imagine so many people live without electricity when there is often so much focus on how much we waste. The exhibition highlights this in a great visial way and seeing it with just a solar light was an interesting twist which certainly got me thinking! I caught up with Peter after, to ask a bit more about the exhibition…
How did this all start?
I was living out in a village myself, experiencing what it was like to live without electricity, whilst working as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural Ghana from 2006 - 2008. I was already doing photography, documenting what was going on around but the first picture I took that went into this exhibition was of the children reading from the Koran in the mosque by candlelight. It was after that I realised the people there were very vocal about this issue and especially how there was more connectivity in the south.
You have partnered with the Ashden Awards for this exhibition, what has that been like?
Partnering with the Ashden Awards has been great - it has been really interesting as it gives greater exposure of the solutions and through exhibiting these photographs, allows me to have a voice on the issue of energy poverty.
Which photos from the exhibition are your favourites?
The most fun photos to shoot were the portraits. I bought some flashlights from the city and then used them to take the portrait photos - soon everyone was queuing up to take part, so they are probably my favourite as it was really fun to do.
The exhibition runs until Sunday 12th February 2012, 11am – 6pm at The Strand Gallery or you can visit the website. You can also connect on twitter using hashtag #lifewithoutlights.
By Helen Craig. Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability at Virgin. Tweets @helcraig
