Helena Christensen was one of the most recognizable supermodels of the 1990′s, she stared in the video for Wicked Game by Chris Isaak and was a Victoria’s Secret Angel. Now she has turned her hand to photography in order to document the effects of climate change in Peru. Her latest exhibitions is called Meltdown and focuses on the farmers and Alpaca herders of  the Peruvian alps.

Helena’s mother is Peruvian so she was keen to show how the environment in Peru is being effected by the pollution from more developed countries. She wants to highlight the effects of climate change on farming communities  as she feels that it is easy to get caught up in the scientific side of climate change and overlook the impact on individuals. she says the the effects of global warming are already visible in Peru:

In some pictures you can see a bit of snow but these were mountains that were, until 10-20 years ago, entirely covered. We saw firsthand how the rivers are drying out, and it’s raining less frequently so the sources of income the local farmers and alpaca herders have been living on for generations cannot be relied on.

An exhibition of Helena Christensen’s photographs will be shown at the Proud Gallery in London from November the 23rd. The exhibition has been organised by Oxfam who are trying to highlight the effects global warming in advance of the Climate Change talks in Copenhagen. The Copenhagen climate summit will be attended by delegates from 192 countries with the aim of establishing a new global treaty on climate change.

For more information on the exhibition see Oxfam’s Climate change page or the Proud gallery‘s website.

Tagged: climate change, eco, Helena Christensen, oxfam