Coral

Through the use of strong, often spectacular images, this first book by Martin Colognoli, a marine biologist and photographer whose approach oscillates between the documentary and the artistic, is a hymn to the defense of biodiversity, a tribute to the coral as an ecosystem essential to our survival and the story of a human adventure. It convinces us that the disappearance of a way of life close to nature and what it can offer us is not inevitable... Immersed in the fragile world of coral and the communities that depend on it, it shows the solidarity, respect and the link to life that these communities have been able to weave over the generations, which is now being undermined by a production model that is constantly destroying the natural resources of the planet. This photographic work by Martin Colognoli traces six years of field experience in Indonesia with a fishing village while he pilots for Coral Guardian, the NGO he created in 2012, the implementation of a program of actions to train villagers to restore coral reefs destroyed by dynamite fishing. Organized around 4 chapters («Coral», «HuMayn», «Linked destinies» and «The thread of life»), Coral makes the link between an emblematic symbol of a threatened fauna - the coral - and the human. The layout of the book alternates photographs of the coral (alive, dead, then back to life), portraits and more abstract, contemplative photographs in black and white.It shows all the dimensions of Martin Colognoli’s photographic work.