Josh Fassbind

DEEP BELOW SILVER CRAGS

My original leitmotiv for this project, in the summer of 2018, was about documenting a river that has been at the center of the European economy for centuries and how water pollution has affected it. What I did not expect was that my documentation would be, a few weeks after the trip, more meaningful than ever. At the end of that summer, the Rhine, due to climate change, was at a level so low that commercial barges could no longer travel down or upstream which had important economic repercussions. This environmental issue is much more insidious than the actual pollution of the water as it is not visible and does not affect people in their daily lives.

This project was shot on medium format film and processed in water collected and stored in bottles found along the 1230 kilometers from its source in the Swiss Alps to the Hook of Holland where it flows into the North Sea.