'If the Ganga lives, India lives. If the Ganga dies, India dies.'
- Vandana Shiva

'In contrast to the sensory onslaught typical of the myriad exoticising images used to ‘sell’ India — bustling bazaars in kaleidoscopic hues, vertiginous throngs congregating on embankments — Di Sturco offers a perspective of quietude and restraint. Landscapes are barren, desolate, and strangely depopulated, a mood further enhanced by the use of startlingly simple compositions and desaturated colours. Here and there, man- made artefacts puncture the otherwise delicate tonal harmonies: a red sari blowing in the wind, a bright blue fishing net, a plastic sandal on the dusty ground.'
- Eimear Martin

Ganga Ma is the result of Giulio Di Sturco’s ten-year photographic journey along the Ganges, documenting the devastating effects of pollution, industrialisation and climate change. The project follows the river for over 2,500 miles, from its source in the Himalayas in India through to its delta in the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh. The river is on the edge of a humanitarian crisis and ecological disaster — a metaphor for man’s conflicted approach to the natural world — both revered and desecrated.

This project was awarded the Getty Images Grant 2014, the first place in the International PhotogrVphy Grant 2018 – Climate Category and was exhibited as part of the Sony World Photography Awards 2015 and LensCulture Exposure Awards 2018 at the Somerset House, London.

A monograph of this work will be published by the award-winning GOST Books in June 2019. The book includes texts by author and environmental activist Dr Vandana Shiva and curator Eimear Martin.