Richard Mosse on Using a Military Grade Camera to Find Signs of Life in Refugee Camps

On a tip from a friend, Mosse bought a military-grade camera meant for long-range battle surveillance that doesn’t see visible light. Instead, this camera sees heat and produces crisp black-and-white images that are exposed based on the relative warmth of everything in the frame. Mosse then used this camera, intended to track and target, as a way to document displacement and the daily fight for survival by the refugees living in camps across Europe for a new project called Heat Maps.

BLDGBLOG says:

These extraordinary images—published here for the first time—show the imperial palaces of Saddam Hussein converted into temporary housing for the U.S military. Vast, self-indulgent halls of columned marble and extravagant chandeliers, surrounded by pools, walls, moats, and, beyond that, empty desert, suddenly look more like college dormitories. Weight sets, flags, partition walls, sofas, basketball hoops, and even posters of bikini’d women have been imported to fill Saddam’s spatial residuum. The effect is oddly decorative, as if someone has simply moved in for a long weekend, unpacking an assortment of mundane possessions.

Via Conscientious