Concept
The avocado has caused a hype rarely seen in recent decades.
The burden of the rising demand lies mainly on the Mexican state of Michoacan. There, forests are being illegally cleared by fire to plant avocado plantations.
The high international demand has led to more extensive and numerous plantations. Over 300,000 jobs directly or indirectly depend on the production and trade of avocados in the region, which generates annual revenues of $2.5 billion.
In 2021 Michoacán alone produced some 1.8 million tons of the green fruit.
In the ongoing drug war, the cartels have become drawn to the revenue potential from the avocado trade.
Protection rackets and the overall presence of the cartels have put enormous pressure on what was until recently Mexico‘s only state with an export license. With escalating violence, the government has had to send in the military to maintain order.
Vita
Axel Javier Sulzbacher, born in 1992 in Hanover, is a German-Mexican photojournalist. He is the son of a Mexican mother from Michoacán and a German father. After graduating from high school, he studied photojournalism and documentary photography at the Hanover University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
He spent extended periods abroad and worked photographically in various countries, including Ukraine, Pakistan, and Mexico, focusing primarily on social and ecological conflict issues. His photographic work draws attention to people whose living conditions are shaped by poverty, violence, and corruption. At the same time, the images document the individual and collective strategies that help those affected manage their daily lives.
Since 2018, Sulzbacher has been conducting extensive research and photojournalistic projects in the Mexican state of Michoacán, particularly in the autonomous indigenous community of Cherán.
Sulzbacher's work has been published in numerous renowned magazines, including Stern, Geo, Das Magazin, Zenith, and The Washington Post. In addition, he has been nominated for several international photography awards and has exhibited his works both in Germany and abroad.
He lives and works as a freelance photographer in Hanover and Berlin.
Jury Statement
In his series Green Dystopia, AXEL JAVIER SULZBACHER documents avocado cultivation in the Mexican state of Michoacán and exposes the serious political, social and ecological grievances.
In visually powerful images, he shows the hard work, the impact of illegal clearing and fires and the resulting monoculture, the social gap between super-rich landowners and workers, and the lurking omnipresent existential threat posed by mafia-like structures.
His courageous work tells of the dark side of our consumer behavior and virtually formulates an imperative: to critically question existing structures, food hypes and even long-standing habits.
The jury of the Felix Schoeller Photo Award honors AXEL JAVIER SULZBACHER with the Prize in the category Sustainability for this impressive and eye-opening reportage.