AGA KHAN MUSEUM
Toronto

23 September 2023

Technicolour Ocean
The fragile biodiversity of Indonesia
Photographs by Hussain Aga Khan

September 23, 2023 – March 31, 2024

It is such a delight and privilege to be able to show my images and share Focused On Nature’s mission here at the Aga Khan Museum.

I’m very grateful to Ulrike for inviting me and would like to thank everyone who worked on this project at the museum, as well as the FON team – Nazir, Farrah, Izzy, Antonin and Patrick –
And our designers of choice, Tau Diseńo.

All the images in this show come from one of the two most biodiverse countries underwater the world over – Indonesia. Papua New Guinea and Indonesia are the absolute hotspots.

The photographs here were taken between:

3 trips to Raja Ampat – sometimes referred to as “the last paradise” where color and form, coral, fish, mantas and invertebrates reign supreme.
At one resort alone they have identified 2200 species of fish and over 600 species of coral.

3 trips to Lembeh – the Mecca of muck diving, where among muddy substrate, naturally black sand and trash, you can find some of the most strangely evolved animals below the waves.
Things like ghost pipefish, orangutan crabs, flying sea gurnards, ribbon eels, harlequin shrimp, diverse species of frogfish, beautiful nudibranchs and more.

One trip to Komodo, the island inhabited by the famous terrestrial dragons with a poisonous bite.
Komodo is a diver’s dream where the marine life is abundant, the sites are legendary, but where the currents are also quite strong.

Indonesia is truly a special, beautiful and welcoming country both on land and under the waves.

But it, too, is at risk.

Of climate change, including coral bleaching due to increasing water temperatures.

Of overfishing and declining populations – such as those of sharks, whose numbers have fallen drastically due to finning in Raja Ampat.

And Indonesia is one of the countries with the greatest plastic problems in the world.
My buddy Oli and I witnessed ridiculously long corridors of plastic and other trash at the surface in Misool, the southernmost island of Raja.

These pristine and magnificent ecosystems, which friends and I hope to visit time and again over the years, are already suffering.

And it is up to us, our governments and families, friends and colleagues to make a real difference and stop the horrific decline of our natural environment however and wherever we can.

Should some of the problems be intractable or too complex to reverse we should at least aim to slow their trajectories.

Thank you so much for visiting Technicolour Ocean. I hope you like the images as much as I liked the creatures within them.

And thank you again to everyone in the museum – and outside it – who worked on this show.

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