At one of Ulaanbaatar’s main municipal rubbish dumps, in the north-east of the Mongolian capital, men and women come every day to scavenge what the city discards. They rummage through frozen heaps in search of plastic, metal or other materials that can be sold for recycling. In temperatures of minus twenty degrees, their movements are swift, driven by necessity. Here and there, I see fires offering a few moments of warmth, amidst the black smoke and rubbish.
The harshness of the place struck me immediately. An informal, precarious economy, where every object found has immediate value. Then my photographer’s gaze broadened. Around me, around the landfill, landscapes of exceptional beauty. The snow-capped mountains of Mongolia encircle the site, immense, silent, almost untouched. They create a unsettling distance from what is unfolding in the foreground.
The contrast is stark. On one side, the visible remnants of our consumer society. On the other, a nature still preserved, as if standing back. This coexistence creates a tension that compels me to look differently.
This series does not seek to emphasise a reality that is already brutal. It presents a situation: that of a grandiose setting which reveals, without detour, the fragility of the world we are transforming.
Between ecological drama and the power of the landscape, the question remains open. What does this scene tell me about the way we inhabit the world? And how far can this contradiction go?
Christian Barbé
Mongolie 2025