at the end of the world.

newyorker:

“At the end of the world,” the photographer Brigitte Grignet writes, “lies one of the most remote and undisturbed areas of Patagonia.” This sparsely populated region in southern Chile, called Aysén, is also one of the most endangered, threatened by plans to dam two of the region’s rivers in order to send hydro power north along thousands of miles of power lines.

Grignet followed the proposed route of these planned power lines, photographing a landscape and way of life that would be forever altered should these plans be carried out. Though Aysén’s hundred thousand inhabitants lead difficult lives—the cost of living is higher than in other parts of Chile due to its isolation, travel is dictated by weather and volcano conditions, electricity is sparse—it remains a legendary place, Grignet said. “I went to Aysén to create the memory of what exists there now and might be disappearing soon,” she told me. “This project is about the Patagonia that could be lost.”

Click-through for a slideshow of Grignet’s photographs: http://nyr.kr/PIncPy