Mas­man Bri­an Mac­Far­lane and in­ter­na­tion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er Alex Smailes have lent their sup­port to the first-ever trav­el­ling pho­to ex­hi­bi­tion in the coun­try. A re­lease last Thurs­day stat­ed that Mac­Far­lane, the man be­hind last year's open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Fifth Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as, has en­dorsed the ex­hi­bi­tion–The En­vi­ron­ment is You–which promis­es to have a rather dis­turb­ing and dra­mat­ic ef­fect on view­ers as it cat­a­logues the hor­rif­ic pol­lu­tion that has be­come the norm in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Mac­Far­lane, who is cur­rent­ly in In­dia show­cas­ing two tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters at an in­ter­na­tion­al ex­hi­bi­tion, says the aims of this pho­to­graph­ic dis­play are sim­i­lar to his 2008 band Earth: Cries of De­spair, Wings of Hope in its at­tempt to wake the peo­ple up to what is hap­pen­ing to our plan­et. "They must see the stark and grave re­al­i­ty of the en­vi­ron­ment that we live in," he said.

Smailes has worked as a pho­to­jour­nal­ist in Haiti, the Balka­ns, the Cau­ca­sus, the Mid­dle East, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Is­lands, and now calls Trinidad home. His trade­mark sear­ing im­ages will be fea­tured in the ex­hi­bi­tion, which cap­tures the dam­age done to our is­lands dai­ly–the burn­ing and clear­ing of hills for de­vel­op­ment; the care­less dis­pos­al of cig­a­rette butts that can cause fires dur­ing the dry sea­son; rub­bish strewn along high­ways, wa­ter­ways, drains and beach­es, and so on. Artist El­speth Dun­can has al­so con­tributed her Side Walk Se­ries, which shows the ef­fect of poor­ly main­tained man­holes on un­sus­pect­ing cit­i­zens, with of­ten trag­ic and un­for­tu­nate re­sults.

The in­spi­ra­tion of San­dra Al­lum, di­rec­tor and lead tourism con­sul­tant for In­ter­na­tion­al Con­sul­tan­cy Lim­it­ed, The En­vi­ron­ment is You ex­hi­bi­tion fol­lows last year's open day on San Fer­nan­do Hill where the fo­cus was re­cy­cling, and the tar­get group school­child­ren. "In essence, this year's ex­hi­bi­tion re­flects the mes­sage that Na­ture is an en­dur­ing gift from God–trea­sure it! We hope to in­spire our cit­i­zens and de­ci­sion mak­ers to make a se­ri­ous at­tempt at pre­serv­ing our en­vi­ron­ment," ex­plained Al­lum.

The con­cept of the trav­el­ling ex­hi­bi­tion is the first of its kind in the coun­try. The 20 large (6ft by 6ft) posters will make their de­but on the fence of Queen's Roy­al Col­lege around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, St Clair, on Oc­to­ber 3, where they will re­main to haunt mo­torists un­til Oc­to­ber 9. They will then be moved from lo­ca­tion to lo­ca­tion, tak­ing their mes­sage through­out T&T. Cor­po­rate sup­port for the project comes from bptt (British Pe­tro­le­um); re­cy­clers Pi­ran­ha In­ter­na­tion­al; Hilton Trinidad; Bel­la Treats; and, Green Cy­clone In­cor­po­rat­ed. Non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions, such as the R4 Ini­tia­tive, Green­light Net­work and Earth Strong Trinidad and To­ba­go have al­so pledged their sup­port. The launch of the ex­hi­bi­tion The En­vi­ron­ment is You will take place on Oc­to­ber 3 at the Sa­van­nah Ter­race, Hilton Trinidad at 5 pm.