Media Peace Awards Finalist
Announced today I'm a finalist in the United Nations Association of Australia Media Peace Awards 2012 Best Online Award category for Tides of Resilience commissioned by ABC Radio National, 360 Documentaries.
Tides of Resilience includes a radio documentary, three short films and a photo essay broadcast and published online on Saturday 26 November 2011. Tides of Resilience tells the story of people still recovering from the destructive effects of Cyclone Sidr one year earlier. Thanks to Claudia Taranto and Tim Nicastri at ABC and Ned Beckley and Adila Noor for their wonderful music. Watch below a remake of the three commissioned videos rolled into one.
A big thanks also goes to Pathak Lal Golder and others from the Bangladesh Peasant Foundation for guiding me through Bangladesh, the numerous translators that helped along the way, readings by Renaissance Drama Society and Shurolok Music Appreciation & Performance Group and the SEARCH Foundation for providing some funding towards the project. In Tides of Resilience Rodney Dekker tells of his journey through Bangladesh as he photographs and interviews people still recovering from the destructive effects of Cyclone Sidr one year earlier. Amongst a rich backdrop of atmospheric sounds he talks to people still grieving after losing loved ones and reflects on the nature of collecting such sad stories. He discovers stories of survival, renewal and opportunity. Interviews with experts provide context and scale to the hardships that people encounter. Dekker meets with communities threatened by changes to weather and the geopolitics of water management, which combine into the flooding of vast amounts of agricultural lands and the destruction of the river ecology. There is a saying in Bangladesh, ‘Fish and rice make a Bengali’, with this under threat, so to are the people’s means of existence. Natural disasters like Cyclone Sidr are occurring with greater intensity and less predictably, this is threatening people’s livelihoods in Bangladesh.
About Rodney
Rodney Dekker is a photographer and film maker predominantly covering environmental and social justice issues. His most significant project has been documenting the affects of climate change and its resulting hardship on livelihoods in Australia, Bangladesh, Tuvalu and Kiribati. His photos have appeared in many publications including The Toronto Star, The Jakarta Post, The Washington Times, ASIAN Geographic, Australian Geographic, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, Weekend Australian Magazine, Outback, and West Weekend. Videos have been published by ABC online, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Geographic and the Herald Sun. Dekker’s been a finalist of Head On Portrait Prize, Reportage, Moran Photographic Prize, UN Media Peace Awards, Australia's Top Photographers, International Photography Awards, Px3, received nominations for Prix Pictet and PDN’s 30 and was selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop USA. A number of Dekker’s photos are held in the National Library of Australia and in the state libraries of Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. He holds a Masters degree in Environmental Analysis and International Development and is a member of MAP Group.
