GOVERNORS ISLAND — An exhibit of powerful photographs showing collapsed houses, smoking rubble and other devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy is opening this weekend on Governors Island.
"Rising Waters: Photographs of Hurricane Sandy" features approximately 100 images shot by professional photographers, as well as bystanders who captured the fury of the storm and its aftermath.
The photos, chosen by the International Center of Photography from more than 5,000 submissions, include a shot by Jennifer Cheswick of a young girl dressed in pink standing amid the wreckage of homes and toppled trees in Breezy Point. A photograph by Chris Ozer shows a massive wave crashing onto a roadway of the Verrazano Bridge.
"When you see a lot of them together, you really begin to detect the patterns of what neighborhoods and parts of the city were hit the hardest," said Brian Wallis, chief curator at ICP.
"And really the underlying question of climate change — you get the sense that things really are changing and we are in a vulnerable situation."
Also on display will be a video from "Drowning World," photographer Gideon Mendel's project that aims to document the effects of flooding worldwide.
The show is co-sponsored by the Museum of the City of New York, which helped collect the submissions and will mount a larger exhibit of them later this year.
While the messages in the Governors Island show are sobering, Wallis said the photos also tell the human side of the story, including how people helped each other during the storm and the ensuing recovery.
"It's actually surprisingly uplifting," he said.
"Rising Waters: Photographs of Hurricane Sandy" will be on display at Governors Island's Building 19 in Nolan Park from Aug. 24 to Sept. 29 on Saturdays, Sundays and Labor Day. There will be a closing celebration on Sept. 22.
