“This is my first activist film,” says the Irish-born, New York-based, Richard Mosse of Broken Spectre, a work of confounding magnitude by the award-winning conceptual documentary photographer and filmmaker. Photo Elysée, a photography museum in Lausanne at the intersection of art, presented his latest work from 2 November 2023 to 25 February 2024.

Renowned for the use of military-grade imaging technology to cover the trail of humanitarian and refugee crisis in the Congo and Mediterranean basin, in Broken Spectre, Mosse pivots to an ecological disaster taking place in the Amazon before our eyes and that can still be turned around.

Richard Mosse, still from Broken Spectre, Roraima, Multispectral GIS aerial © Richard Mosse. The use of multispectral cameras reveals what the naked eye cannot see. In this image the progressive destruction of the sources of chlorophyll (in bright orange) is devastatingly clear.

Since the construction of the Trans-Amazonian highway in 1972, the deforestation to make way for intensive crops, cattle farming and mineral mining has reduced the rain forest by more than twenty percent; it is about to reach tipping point, beyond which it will no longer be able to regenerate itself and to continue to absorb the CO2 of the planet.

From 2019 to 2022, Mosse filmed the exponential destruction carried out by criminal gangs working for the commercial interests of multinational compagnies, a live denunciation of the policies upheld by the Brazilian president, Bolsonaro, before de Lula da Silva was voted back into power.

Review of the exhibition in French: L’art, une arme contre la destruction de l’Amazonie

Richard Mosse, still from Broken Spectre, ultraviolet black and white © Richard Mosse.A scene of the rampant slash and burn technique used to clear the swathes of forest.

Lausanne, Switzerland, 2 November 2023, portrait Richard Mosse by Photo Elysée

Combatting indifference with beauty: fragments of a conversation with Richard Mosse.

After your films on refugees displaced by wars, why ‘Broken Spectre’ on the Amazonian Forest?

“I was looking for something quiet after years on the trail of wars.  But when I started making a film on nocturnal flowers in Ecuador and Peru, Trevor Tweet (Los Angeles-based cinematographer and artist with whom Mosse has collaborated numerous times) and I decided that it was impossible to ignore the extensive fires taking place in the Amazonian basin.”

Did you plan to speak of climate change?

“I became very interested in the fact that it is happening now and that it is changeable.”

Doesn’t multispectral imagery transform the horror into beauty?

“The beauty surpasses the horror, it makes it bearable, but in a way that cannot result in indifference.”

Is beauty not a danger?

“No, it’s the sharpest tool in the box. It is the arrow in the quiver at the disposal of the artist. It helps find a new way to dial into a subject, to see it in a different way.”

What makes your work different from photojournalism? What makes it a work of art?

“I work with Trevor Tweeten and Ben Frost (an experimental Australian composer based in Iceland) to create a dream space, to leave you with an experience that will stay with you. I use art for its lasting power, so you don’t just switch it off.”

You say this is your first activist film. What is the difference between activism and art activism?

“Activists know when they have made a change in the world. In art, you can’t see it; it becomes a consciousness of perception. Art works are autonomous; they don’t tell you what to think. I leave viewers the space to maneuver within themselves.”

And yet, John Kerry, Biden’s former climate envoy, asked for a link to Broken Spectre before meeting with the newly elected Brazilian president, Lula da Silva.

“I have no way of knowing if my film influenced events, but two weeks later, the new Brazilian president sent in troops to protect the Yanomami people from the gold diggers. This is precisely what Adneia, a young mother of the tribe that we filmed was asking for.”

As a live artist working on a live world, what can we gain from your art ?

“I leave viewers the space to maneuver within themselves. The infinitely fragile and the brutal power of destruction are mesmerizing. I want you to feel and remember, I want you take ownership of the work.”

Showings of Broken Spectre have taken place at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 180 Studios in London, Converge in Portland, Oregon, Photo Elysée, Lausanne and the Jack Shainmann gallery in New York.

Richard Mosse

Richard Mosse, exhibition view of Broken Spectre, National Gallery of VIctoria © Tom Ross

Richard Mosse, exhibition view of Broken Spectre, National Gallery of VIctoria © Tom Ross

Richard Mosse, still from Broken Spectre, Roraima, Spectre, ultraviolet black & white © Richard Mosse

Richard Mosse, still from Broken Spectre © Richard Mosse. The forest bed reveals its stunning sculptural beauty under the lens of Trevor Tweeten, . The sound enhancements by Ben Frost add an otherwordly quality to the images.