Impermanence: Environmental Collapse of Louisiana’s Vanishing Coast

by Daniel Kariko

In this month’s “Photographers to Watch” series, we’re honored to highlight the work of Daniel Kariko, a U.S.-based artist whose long-term project Impermanence: Environmental Collapse of Louisiana’s Vanishing Coast chronicles one of the most urgent environmental transformations of our time. For more than two decades, Kariko has returned year after year to the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary, documenting the unraveling of Louisiana’s wetlands. His photographs trace the erosion of a landscape that is vanishing at an astonishing pace—one football field of land every half-hour—while also bearing witness to the communities, cultures, and livelihoods tied to this fragile geography.

Through his images, Kariko reveals not only the stark environmental realities of sea-level rise and storm devastation but also the resilience and vulnerability of those who remain tethered to this disappearing land. Indigenous Americans, Cajuns, and Asian American families—whose lives are shaped by the wetlands—emerge as central figures in his visual narrative. “Our technology may slow the erosion,” Kariko observes, “but it cannot preserve cultural heritage.” His work transforms coastal collapse into both a global cautionary tale and an intimate metaphor, one he links to his own experience of watching Yugoslavia, his native country, disintegrate.

The photographs, atmospheric yet unflinching, invite viewers to confront the intersection of humanity and environment: how people adapt, how cultures endure, and what is at stake when land itself is impermanent.

About Daniel Kariko

Daniel Kariko is an artist and academic at East Carolina University whose practice resides at the crossroads of photography, science, and environmental change. His creative research encompasses disappearing coastlines, cultural erosion, and the impact of climate change on vulnerable communities. Kariko’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Smithsonian Institution, the Noorderlicht Photofestival, and London’s Royal Albert Hall.

In addition to Impermanence, his fascination with the unseen is evident in his book Aliens Among Us: Extraordinary Images of Ordinary Insects (Liveright, 2020), where electron microscopy transforms common insects into otherworldly portraits. Whether turning his lens to macro landscapes or microscopic worlds, Kariko compels viewers to reconsider their relationship with nature, place, and time.

More of his work can be seen at www.DanielKariko.com