Nora Bibel’s Uncertain Homelands takes water—in abundance or in scarcity—as its central theme. Working across Indonesia, Namibia, and Germany, Bibel investigates the repercussions of climate change through drone photography of landscapes, intimate portraits of people affected by human-made climate change, and interviews she conducted and edited. The result is a layered body of work that engages with global interconnectivity and the mutual influence of water systems.

The book’s three locations are made to speak to one another. A man stands with raised arms among scorched tree trunks in Brandenburg; a boy in Indonesia lies in the water in a flooded living room after rainfall turned the house into a swimming pool; a Namibian farmer looks out over the surrounding desert, where every piece of greenery is a precious asset. The photographs alternate between narrative and enigmatic, abstract moments, and that alternation gives the sequence its tension. The uncertainty lies in the question of how our lives will change as a result of climate change.

Essays by Fred Hattermann, Rosa-Stella Mbulu, Bruno Merz, Sapariah Saturi, and Christiane Stahl accompany the photographic work. The book shows how intertwined individual biographies, global water systems, and climate policy are, and tells a story about the threat to our familiar way of life but also about the resilience and diverse adaptation strategies that people use to counter it.

Uncertain Homelands is published by The Eriskay Connection: 308 pages at 230 × 320 mm, Swiss-bound hardcover, with English text and German translations, designed by Sybren Kuiper. It is a considered piece of documentary practice, and the care taken with its production reflects that seriousness.