215 - Luca Locatelli

A Small Voice: Conversations With Photographers

Italian photographer Luca Locatelli describes himself as an environmental visual storyteller.

For more than a decade Luca has aimed to open a debate about the environment and our future with his work by synergizing art, science, and journalism to explore the world’s most promising solutions to the climate crisis. As an artist, Luca is concerned with trying to translate complex scientific data into visually engaging images and distribute them on social networks, in publications and at events.

His work has been published in international media such as National Geographic, The New York Times, and TIME. It has also been displayed in prominent global venues, including the Guggenheim Museum of New York, the Shangai Center of Photography, and others.

In addition, for over two years, Luca has been working on a significant and immersive cultural project about the Circular Economy with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which is now an exhibition entitled The Circle at Gallerie D’Italia Museum of Turin, Italy, until February 2024.

Since 2004 Luca has been a founding partner of a non-governmental association that contributes to protect 600 thousand hectares of tropical forest in the Amazon.

In episode 215 Luca discusses, among other things:

• How it started with a trip up the Amazon
• Trying to do 2 things and failing
• How he discovered a talent for generating good story ideas
• Exploring his interest in ways that technology can help solve the environmental crisis
• His project about food, Hunger Solutions
• How he became interested in the circular economy
• The End of Trash - Circular Economy Solutions
• Stealing the idea of ‘Think Week’ from Bill Gates
• How he thinks about his own carbon footprint
• The problem of fast fashion
• Developing economies
• Future generations
• Hopes that his work can have an impact
• Creating ‘disorientation’ in the viewer
• The hope of nature-based solutions

Referenced:

• Kathy Ryan
• Che Guevara
• Bill Gates

Website | Instagram

“When we think about photography and changing the world we always think in one direction… we think that photography is about the last flood, about the last fire, the last tremendous things happening in the world with climate change. It’s not the only perspective. What if we can give to young people pictures that can show them solutions and a way of imagining and opening a debate about the future?”

• Become a full tier 1 member here to access exclusive additional subscriber-only content and the full archive of previous episodes for £5 per month.
• For the tier 2 archive-only membership, to access the full library of past episodes for £3 per month, go here.
• Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here for everything A Small Voice related and much more besides.
• Follow me on Instagram here.
• Build Yourself a Squarespace Website video course here.