ENTRY DESCRIPTION
We live in a highly industrialized society in which we coexist daily with an environment saturated with chemical substances. We eat them, we breathe them, we touch them ... For the majority of the population, many of these elements are harmless and even make our lives easier, but not for everyone. A growing portion of the world population has developed and adverse reaction to these non-natural materials that makes them vulnerable and even worse: ill.
Dizziness, vomiting, fatigue or loss of consciousness are some of the symptoms that people with multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome (MCS) have to deal with on a daily basis. Known colloquially as environmental disease, this pathology has its origin in the adverse reaction to various chemical compounds present in our food and environment.
Those affected by this syndrome live ignored by institutions, by doctors and, even, misunderstood by an environment unable to recognize an imperceptible condition, which can not see or touch, nor feel, deriving patients to a social condemnation in which even questions their psychological integrity.
Birds of pollution collects the life of a series of women affected by MCS in Spain, who need seclusion to survive, since they must obey a strict protocol that avoids contact with these chemicals or with people who have been exposed to these substances. The purpose is to keep away from home a threat that keeps their lives under a constant invisible danger, in a claustrophobic routine full of shadows. The home becomes an isolation chamber, perspective is lost and the relationship with an outside world that is becoming unreal.

AUTHOR
Carmen Sayago (Spain, 1983) is a documentary photographer based in Spain. Her work mainly focused in social issues, although the curiosity of this photographer makes it also focus other issues very little known by society, creating in each reportage a language of its own.

Since 2016, she is working in a project related to pollution and climate change. A problem that directly affects humans and that very few people know.

She is one of the emerging photographers in her country.

Her pictures have been published in the important papers and magazines national e international such as Days Japan, Il Reportage, XL Semanal, El Mundo, Interviú, Vanity Fair…

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