Change in Land Use Creates New Disease Patterns

This piece presents an aerial image of the Amazon River. Continuous deforestation has led to extreme runoff, likening the riparian image to a sanguinary circulatory system. This aesthetic connection is strengthened by the knowledge that this change in land use has led to emerging disease patterns, particularly with malaria. Images of red blood cells infected with the pathogenic protozoan Plasmodium falciparum are barely apparent. Like the nearly abstracted images of Donald Sultan, my aim here was “heavy structure, holding fragile meaning.” Most interesting to me is the weight given to the interstices, or negative space. Although we regularly consider the area around an object (or idea) to be secondary to the actual object, it is this space that gives the object its significance or context, exemplified by the definition of health as the absence of disease.