Khashayar Javanmardi's activist approach to photography seamlessly fuses climate anxiety with classical documentary techniques, focusing on the Iranian shores of the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest enclosed body of water. 

Growing up near this sea, Javanmardi witnessed firsthand its environmental degradation due to overfishing, pollution, and unregulated industrial exploitation, exacerbated by climate change. His work captures the profound impact on local communities, whose livelihoods are increasingly diminished as the sea’s resources dwindle.

Through his lens, Javanmardi presents haunting images of the Iranian coastline, documenting how industrial waste, sewage, and oil pollutants have devastated aquatic life and undermined food security. Fishing, a key source of income for many, has seen a dramatic 70% decline, leaving local fishermen struggling to survive. Javanmardi’s photographs emphasize both the human cost and nature’s resilience, offering a poignant commentary on this urgent crisis.

His visual storytelling is marked by a delicate balance between poetic imagery and hard-hitting documentary realism. Javanmardi’s work calls attention to the necessity of integrating systemic political change with everyday lived experience to address the escalating environmental damage. His Caspian project serves as both a lyrical meditation on loss and a call for action against climate degradation.

96 pages, 285 × 245 mm, 75 colour plates
Section-sewn debossed hardcover
Texts by Nathalie Herschdorfer and the artist in English and Farsi
Edited & Sequenced by Sarah Chaplin Espenon
Designed & Published by Loose Joints