{"product_id":"sebastiao-salgado-kuwait","title":"Sebastiao Salgado Kuwait","description":"\u003cp\u003e“We must remember that in the brutality of battle another such apocalypse is always just around the corner.” —Sebastião Salgado\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In January and February 1991, as the United States-led coalition drove Iraqi forces out of \u003cstrong\u003eKuwait,\u003c\/strong\u003e Saddam Hussein’s troops retaliated with an inferno. At some \u003cstrong\u003e700 oil wells\u003c\/strong\u003e and an unspecified number of oil-filled low-lying areas they ignited \u003cstrong\u003evast, raging fires\u003c\/strong\u003e, creating \u003cstrong\u003eone of the worst environmental disasters in living memory\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As the desperate efforts to contain and extinguish the conflagration progressed, \u003cstrong\u003eSebastião Salgado \u003c\/strong\u003etraveled to Kuwait to witness the crisis firsthand. The conditions were excruciating. The\u003cstrong\u003e heat was so vicious that Salgado’s smallest lens warped.\u003c\/strong\u003e A journalist and another photographer were killed when a slick ignited as they crossed it. Sticking close to the firefighters, and with characteristic sensitivity to both human and environmental impact, Salgado captured the \u003cstrong\u003eterrifying scale of this “huge theater the size of the planet”\u003c\/strong\u003e: the ravaged landscape; the sweltering temperatures; the air choking on charred sand and soot; the blistered remains of camels; the sand still littered with cluster bombs; and the flames and smoke soaring to the skies, blocking out the sunlight, dwarfing the oil-coated firefighters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Salgado’s epic pictures first appeared in the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times Magazine\u003c\/em\u003e in June 1991 and were subsequently awarded the \u003cstrong\u003eOskar Barnack Award\u003c\/strong\u003e, recognizing outstanding images on the relationship between man and the environment. \u003cem\u003eKuwait: A Desert on Fire\u003c\/em\u003e is the\u003cstrong\u003e first monograph of this astonishing series\u003c\/strong\u003e. Like \u003cem\u003eGenesis\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eExodus\u003c\/em\u003e, and\u003cem\u003e The Children\u003c\/em\u003e, it is as much a major document of modern history as an extraordinary body of photographic work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MediaPlace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57315992699262,"sku":"NW9783836561259","price":38.39,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1379\/1261\/files\/9783836561259.jpg?v=1778249151","url":"https:\/\/mediaplace.com\/products\/sebastiao-salgado-kuwait","provider":"MediaPlace","version":"1.0","type":"link"}