About Pete
Pete Muller is an award-winner photographer, filmmaker and artist. He regularly works for National Geographic where he is a storytelling fellow. Since 2005, he has worked to document the individual consequences of war, upheaval and traditional gender constructs. Through a combination of media, he aims to illustrate broader issues through individual stories and strives to create images and material that demand sensitive consideration of the lives of those depicted.
In this conversation, we talk about his recent project for National Geogrpahic Magazine about the concept of ‘solastalgia’. Solastalgia is a newly-developed word that speaks to the emotional and existential distress caused by environmental change. Pete spent more than 2 years traveling around the world to document communities whose home environments have significantly changed.
Pete is originally from Massachusetts and now splits his time between New York City and Maine.
Solastalgia
Solastalgia is a newly-developed word that speaks to the emotional and existential distress caused by environmental change. Pete spent more than 2 years traveling around the world for National Geographic Magazine to document communities whose home environments have significantly changed. Photo by Pete Muller.
The First Wave
The First Wave spotlights the everyday heroes at the epicenter of COVID-19 as they come together to fight one of the greatest threats the world has ever encountered. Leaving a devastating trail of death and despair, this once-in-a-century pandemic changed the very fabric of our daily lives and exposed long-standing inequities in our society. The film follows a group of doctors, nurses and patients on the frontlines as they all desperately try to navigate the crisis. With each distinct storyline serving as a microcosm through which we can view the emotional and societal impacts of the pandemic, The First Wave is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.
In this episode of The Memory Generation, we heard testimony from four individuals featured in Pete’s Solastalgia project. You can hear more testimony and see photographs of those people on Pete’s Instagram:
Chantel Cammerdale