‘E-CO’ at the American University Museum

Photography collectives from around the world offer a variety of interpretations of environmental themes — some political, some poetic — in ‘E-CO,’ a thought-provoking showcase of imagery at the American University Museum.

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The torrential rains (often accompanied by flooding and mudslides) that plagued the city of Sao Paulo in 2009 are the focus of "Rain," a photo essay by the Brazilian photography collective Cia de Foto.

/ Cia de Foto

The Riachuelo, a river in Buenos Aires, is so polluted by sewage and industrial waste that the level of dissolved oxygen in the water is near zero. It is, as the exhibition catalogue notes, drowning in itself.

/ Cooperativa Sub

Photographer Magali Corouge of the London-based Documentography shot a single day’s worth of domestic trash from a family of four, meticulously laid out in the manner of a museum display.

/ Documentography

Rather than documenting a specific environmental problem, the photographers of Costa Rica’s Colectivo Nomada use visual absurdity and contradiction to underscore the disconnect between modern man and nature.

/ Colectivo Nomada

The photography collective Est Ost was formed from the merger of two groups: one based in Paris, the other in Budapest. For what it calls an "environmental inventory" of the polluted Danube River, the group edited together a selection of new and archival images of life (and death) along the waterway.

/ Est & Ost

Rio de Janeiro’s so-called "eco-wall" (visible in the upper left) is a barricade of cement blocks intended to prevent the encroachment of the city’s slums on the surrounding rain forest. But critics, mindful of the tourists who will flood the city for the 2016 Summer Olympics, have called it a form of economic apartheid.

/ Garapa

"Pets," a series of photographs by the Portuguese group Kameraphoto, is among the most artful of the projects featured in "E-CO." It features pictures of slightly seedy taxidermied animals, like this Northern shoveler duck, a metaphor for our tardiness in protecting endangered species.

/ Kameraphoto

The Spanish group Nophoto chose to go conceptual with its contribution to "E-CO," outfitting a Chinese cycling team with "Nophoto" uniforms and staging bike rides -- and what could be greener? -- through the city of Wuhan, China, one of the most polluted places in the world.

/ Nophoto

The images from "Deja Vu," a photographic essay by the French collective Odessa, evoke the natural cycles of growth and decay. This ivy-covered building embodies the tension between the natural and the unnatural.

/ Odessa

For his series "Atom," photographer Thomas Meyer of the German group Ostkreuz shot the Greifswald nuclear power plant, a decommissioned facility whose pristine control room belies the grave problem of nuclear waste.

/ Ostkreuz

A mountain of old computers, many still containing hazardous material, sits in a dump in Karachi, Pakistan, in this photo by the Spanish group Pandora Foto.

/ Pandora Foto

The cancer rate in the Spanish province of Huelva, where radioactive waste in the form of phosphogypsum is a huge problem, is the highest in all of Spain. In this portrait of a sick woman, the group Ruido Photo personalizes a cold statistic.

/ Ruido Photo

The Peruvian city of Iquitos, in the Amazonian rain forest, is a place of contrasts and contradictions, made literal in this shot of children playing on the margins of a flooded soccer field.

/ Supay Fotos

Tendance Floue, a group of French photographers, chose the trash cycle -- its creation, collection, disposal and infrequent reuse -- as its unlovely subject.

/ Tendance Floue

Photographer Pietro Paolini of Italy's Terraproject shot this portrait of Antonio Sepe. Sepe's late son Luca was one of many Italian soldiers to contract lymphoma after serving in the Balkans, where depleted uranium weapons used during the wars of the 1990s left much contamination.

/ Terraproject

This strange and haunting image of artificial roses comes from Versus Photo's photographic essay about a psychiatric hospital in the Peruvian jungle, where ideas of what's natural and what's not are hard to pin down.

/ Versus Photo

FEATURED PHOTO GALLERIES

TV presenter and conservationist Anneka Tanaka-Svenska wears a hat designed by Louis Mariette during the first day of Royal Ascot, in Berkshire, west of London, on June 18, 2013. The five-day meeting is one of the highlights of the horse racing calendar. Horse racing has been held at the famous Berkshire course since 1711 and tradition is a hallmark of the meeting. Top hats and tails remain compulsory in parts of the course while a daily procession of horse-drawn carriages brings the Queen to the course. AFP PHOTO / ADRIAN DENNISADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images

Photos of the day

Royal Ascot, protests in Brazil, Lego exhibition, flooding in India, Cheetah-Cub robot and more.

epa03749440 US actor Brad Pitt arrives on the red carpet for the New York Premiere of 'World War Z' in Times Square in New York, USA, 17 June 2013. EPA/JASON SZENES

The premiere of ‘World War Z’

The zombie flick starring Brad Pitt opens from Berlin to New York.

Two-year old male rat named Dyatlik wears a costume during a rodent exhibition in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, June 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Animal views

Rodent exhibition, swimming with elephants, Mexico’s feline mayoral candidate and more.

Inmates walk at a high-security male prison camp outside Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk May 14, 2013. High-security male prison camp number 17 is intended to house male inmates who are serving a sentence for the first time, and have been convicted for serious crimes. Prisoners at the facility work in wood and metal processing shops, manufacture furniture, sew clothes and do other kinds of work. They can also take part in educational, sport and cultural programs. Picture taken May 14, 2013. REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin (RUSSIA - Tags: CRIME LAW SOCIETY) ATTENTION EDITORS: PICTURE 4 OF 29 FOR PACKAGE 'INSIDE SIBERIA'S PRISONS' SEARCH 'ILYA PRISON' FOR ALL IMAGES

Life in a Siberian prison

A look inside a high-security prison camp outside Krasnoyarsk, Russia

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 14: Johnathon Carrington, valedictorian at Dunbar High School, laughs with family and friends after his school's graduation ceremony at Howard University on Friday, June 14, 2013, in Washington, DC. Carrington, who grew up in Tyler House public-housing apartments and is graduating from one of DC's low-performing high schoolsy, where academic expectations are high. (Photo by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Johnathon’s journey

Johnathon Carrington graduated Friday as the valedictorian of his neighborhood school, Dunbar High, and is headed to Georgetown University. But Carrington, 17, is nervous, and so are...

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 18: Madonna attends the Dolce & Gabbana and The Cinema Society screening of the Epix World premiere of 'Madonna: The MDNA Tour' at The Paris Theatre on June 18, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

Eye on entertainment

Madonna, Michael Buble, Barbara Streisand, Jackie Chan, Jerry Seinfeld, Estelle and other celebrities.

In this June 8, 2013 photo, youth compete in the Sao Carlos slum local soccer tournament in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The pitch is just dirt and the incandescent lights aren't so bright. But when the boys' feet strike the football in the Sao Carlos slum as night falls every Saturday, big league dreams glow, inflated by the hope of escaping the shantytown with sporting skills. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Brazil’s other soccer fields

With the Confederations Cup opening this week and the World Cup one year away, all eyes are on Brazil, where soccer is arguably played with more passion and art than anywhere else....

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 16: John F. Tatum Sr. hugs his grandson John F. Tatum III during his annual Father's Day block party on Sunday, June 16, 2013 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post)

Father’s Day picnic in Northeast D.C.

A decades-old backyard barbecue in Northeast Washington draws hundreds in honor of dads everywhere. “It’s off-the-chain fun,” says Butch McNair, who has worked one...

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