Wesaam Al-Badry is a visual journalist and interdisciplinary artist. He received his MA in New Media Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Born in Nasiriyah, Iraq, Al-Badry and his family fled Iraq at the outset of the Gulf War. They lived in refugee camps in Saudi Arabia before relocating to Lincoln, Nebraska in 1994. There, they lived across from a plastics factory and the railroad tracks. As a child, Wesaam suffered from asthma caused by the surrounding pollution. Through his documentary work, Al-Badry pursues themes surrounding labor, migration, and the environment. He has recorded his family’s experience as refugees in the Midwest, migrant workers in California’s Central and Salinas Valleys, and the impact of fracking on communities in Pennsylvania. In June 2023, Al Badry was honored as one of the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s 35 Great Americans. He has received The John Collier Jr. Award for Still Photography, Dorothea Lange Fellowship, the Jim Marshall Fellowship for Photography, The National Geographic Society fellowship, and is a Magnum Foundation grantee. His artwork has been exhibited internationally at museums including the de Young Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco, the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany, and Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City.

Rasha Almulaiki is the Founder and Principal of ADALA PR Agency LLC, a boutique public relations firm based in Detroit. Drawing from her experience as a media relations manager in the City of Detroit Mayor's Office, where she also leads communications for the Office of Mobility Innovation and the Office of Sustainability, Rasha has built ADALA PR on a foundation of strategic storytelling. With a background as a movement journalist, featured in outlets such as The Michigan Chronicle, Metro Times Detroit and The Arab American News, Rasha is dedicated to elevating narratives that intersect with community, race, gender, and politics. ADALA PR Agency focuses on empowering clients through tailored communications strategies, amplifying marginalized voices, and driving social justice-centered change.

Theresa Landrum is a community organizer and activist who has been fighting environmental injustices for decades. A lifelong Detroiter, Ms. Landrum is one of the most outspoken activists in 48217, an area recognized as the most polluted zip code in Michigan. She serves on two key committees under Governor Gretchen Whitmer. On the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team Citizens' Advisory Work Group (MPART CAWG), she scrutinizes and helps shape policy and standards for Michigan's water. On the Michigan Advisory Council on Environmental Justice (MAC-EJ), she works to develop policies addressing environmental justice in Michigan. In addition, Ms. Landrum serves on several local boards and steering committees, including Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, the Air Quality Sensor Collaborative, and the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition. Nationally, she represents her frontline community on the boards of the Evergreen Collaborative and FracTracker Alliance. As president of the Original United Citizens of Southwest Detroit, her mission is to fight for stronger, actionable policies to reduce pollution and combat climate change.

Samraa Luqman is a lifelong Dearborn resident. After graduating from high school, she attended Henry Ford College and earned a bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan. While she has experience in the financial and real estate industry, Samraa has worked in the public service sector the majority of her life, from volunteering at VA hospitals to working in nonprofit organizations. Luqman is a proud Yemeni American who has been a fierce social justice activist for decades and sits in the boards/steering committees of the Friends of the Rouge, Environmental Health Research to Action, PFAS Alliance, Clean Air Council, the state's PFAS Advisory Work Group, and the Concerned Residents for South Dearborn (CRSD). She has spoken in front of local, state, and national audiences on issues of environmental justice and worked with the University of Michigan's Environmental Interpretive Center, multiple municipalities, Wayne County officials, state and congressional reps, and local corporations to raise awareness on environmental issues.

Pollution Has No Boundaries is an ongoing interdisciplinary photography and video project that captures the enduring spirit of communities living at the heart of toxic industrial pollution. From Southend Dearborn to Southwest Detroit, and across the neighborhoods of River Rouge and Ecorse, this project documents the lives of those who continue to thrive despite the environmental injustices they face.

Through this in-depth project, we witness the stories of families and individuals who have long called these neighborhoods home, only to find themselves at the forefront of industrial expansion — driven by policies that prioritize profit and perpetuate environmental racism. These predominantly Black and Brown communities, once drawn to Detroit by the promise of jobs and prosperity, now find themselves battling complex environmental hazards that have devastated their health. The effects are chilling: on every block, families confront the harrowing toll of cancer, asthma, heart disease, and COPD.

In Al-Badry's intimate portraits, the resilience of the people is set against stark industrial backdrops. Smokestacks tower over children at play, industrial waste piles up behind schools, and smoke plumes rise from shuttered steel plants, haunting the riverside where locals fish. These images underscore the tension between human vitality and the toxic landscapes they inhabit.

Al-Badry’s personal connection to these stories is undeniable. Born in Iraq, he lived in refugee camps in Saudi Arabia before settling in the shadow of a plastics factory in the Midwest, where he developed asthma as a child. Al-Badry has lived and worked in Detroit, telling the stories of communities like his own—communities shaped by migration, burdened by pollution, yet steadfast in their will to endure.

This project is not just documentation, it is a call for recognition and environmental justice, and asks the question: “Where do we go from here?” And what do we choose: chaos or community?

This project is supported and funded by The Center for Contemporary Documentation.

For Freedoms is an artist-led organization that centers art as a catalyst for creative civic engagement, discourse, and direct action. Founded in 2016 by a coalition of artists including Hank Willis Thomas, Eric Gottesman, Michelle Woo, and Wyatt Gallery, For Freedoms is dedicated to fostering an environment of listening, healing, and justice through a wide range of creative activations. Taking inspiration from traditional town hall meetings, For Freedoms Town Halls are artist-led and community-guided, exploring how we could center artists’ voices in public discourse, expand what participation in a democracy looks like, and reshape conversations about politics.

The Center for Contemporary Documentation is a nonprofit whose mission is to reveal through photography, videography, and other visual arts the impacts of climate change and air, water, and toxic chemical pollution on communities across the United States. Founded on the principle that environmental and climate justice is a civil rights issue, this work of CCD aims to create awareness and educate.