This is happening6:29Like a book about motifs, it became a story about human migration
In the early days of Pandemia, when most people could not travel anywhere, Lucas Foglia was obsessed with butterflies that go almost everywhere.
Painted butterflies, found on almost every continent, belong to the most prolific travelers of the planet. In particular, one population takes an epic, multi -generational journey each year from Europe to Africa and back.
So in 2021, as soon as Foglia was able to get on the plane, photographer San Francisco Bay Area went to Italy to find butterflies that captured his imagination and cooperate tracking scientists What is considered to be The world's longest migration route in the world.
But the result of this journey, photo book Continuous floweringIt applies to both people and butterflies, says Foglia.
“At the beginning of the project, I thought I was going to photograph butterflies and follow them, wherever I did,” Foglia said This is happening Host Nil Köksal. “But soon I realized that the longest migration of the butterfly depends on people.”
In his book, Foglia not only examines how human activity affects the migration route of the painted lady, but also on the similarities between butterfly movements and extensive and dangerous travels that people make more than the boundaries every day in search of security and maintenance.
“When I look at photos, I think about who they are and what they teach me,” he said. “It was at least a transformation journey.”
Painted butterflies “amazing”
Painted women's butterflies migrate with the changing seasons, chasing warm weather so that they can have a constant supply of nectar on which you can celebrate, and favorable conditions for combining and reproducing – hence the title of the book, Continuous flowering.
In North America, they travel between Canada and Central America. In Asia, they cross the Himalayas. And in Europe they do almost 14,000 kilometer trip to both directions between Skansanavia and Sub -Saharan AfricaBy crossing both the desert and the ocean, on the journey, which covers eight to 10 generations.
“Painted women's butterflies are really unique in how far they migrate, and that they have these really large populations,” said Foglia Biologist Megan Reich, a post-coating researcher at the University of Ottawa, who studies his European-African migration.
“They go through these cycles of the explosion and help news, because so many butterflies pass through the city and it's really amazing.”
Species even once made Transatlantic travel 4200 km through the ocean From West Africa to French Guyana in South America, probably blown with wind currents to one of the few places on the planet that they should not be.
Reich was part An international team that mapped this journey Analyzing wind patterns, sequencing of the bottom of the pollen grains they wore, and analyzing isotope compositions or chemical signatures of their wings.
“It's amazing that the butterfly was able to survive this journey,” she said. “We came to the conclusion that he spent five to eight days flying over the open ocean.”
I am looking for butterflies and finding human stories
This resistance is something that Foglia began to deeply admire the painted lady when he spent almost four years, traveling to 17 countries to capture photos of butterflies and people and places with which they intersect.
“I'm not looking for butterflies. I'm looking for what butterflies are looking for,” he said. “So I would look for flowers first.”
But climate change and human violation in wild habitats mean that wild flowers do not always bloom when and where they should.
“Because drought and other weather became unpredictable, sometimes it was more difficult to find them on the route that their migration traveled for millions of years,” he said.
But the butterflies adapted. That is why Foglia has often found itself in parks and gardens and in other places where there are people, creating conversations.
“People like butterflies,” he said. “And when they find out that the butterflies they see outside, travel all over the world to get there, it was sensible when people could hear and learn, and then think about themselves as related to other places over borders.”
Borders
While photographing butterflies in the Roman ruins of northern Jordan, Foglia met a group of Palestinian and Syrian refugees, performing its own migration.
“I saw flowers blooming between the stones of these Roman ruins and I thought that butterflies have been flying to these flowers for millions of years, before the Roman Empire arose and collapsed,” he said.
“And the layers of politics, power and history in this place got stuck with me.”
His journey finally took him to Tunisia on the coast of the northern end of Africa.
“I saw butterflies on these beautiful purple flowers between the charred trunks of the trees that were burning in fire,” he said. “And butterflies drink nectar from these purple flowers and flew through the Mediterranean.”
That the Mediterranean Sea exceeding butterflies create so freely, it is now The most dangerous path of migration of people in the world. Over 28,000 people have died since 2014. According to the International Migration Organizationin this 2,452 last year.
During her stay in Tunisia, Foglia met a group of teenagers who spent the afternoon He is looking for butterflies with him. He photographed young people with the Mediterranean as a background.
Later, one of these boys set off on his own journey on this deadly route, following the butterfly path.
“(He) called me a few months later, saying that he came to Italy to Łódź and asked for help – and also asked if the butterflies arrived safely there,” said Foglia.
“This transformed the project for me. I felt that I had to intertwine these photos of people migrating next to … photos of butterflies migrating through the sea. “
Pictures with Continuous flowering ARe At the exhibition at the Fredericks & Freiser gallery in New York.
Meanwhile, Foglia says that his time chasing butterflies above the borders forced him to act. Currently, he will volunteer to organize refugees and transmit his photos to use them in their spokesman.
“If I talked to my grandson, I could say that I made a project in a history point, when many people and countries were isolated, and the borders were strong and militarized,” said Foglia.
“The lesson, which I felt from the following painted butterflies in countries and continents, consisted in the fact that both people and nature are connected between borders. And because we are connected, we are all responsible for taking care of nature and each other.”