Did you know that last year the Amazon faced its worst drought on record — while Antarctica experienced record-breaking warming?

In September 2024, a joint expedition of Peruvian and Ukrainian ecologists, biologists, and researchers under the AWAKEN project explored the Amazon. It was there that the idea was born: to create a photo exhibition that would vividly show how climate change simultaneously affects both the Amazon rainforest and Antarctica — two worlds that may seem far apart, but are in fact deeply interconnected.

Now, exactly one year later, in September 2025, this idea has come to life with the opening of the exhibition in Iquitos.

The exhibition, titled “Planet on the Grill: Fragile Worlds of Antarctica and the Amazon,” reveals how these two ecosystems depend on each other. For example, atmospheric rivers formed in the Amazon — a phenomenon studied by Ukrainian Antarctic scientists — contribute to warming in Antarctica. Meanwhile, cold ocean currents from Antarctica influence drought cycles in the Amazon. What happens in one part of the planet ripples across to the other.

By supporting this initiative, AWAKEN seeks to draw attention to this global interdependence and to show that protecting the Amazon and Antarctica is part of a single mission: safeguarding the Earth’s climate system.

The traveling exhibition first opened in Kyiv on February 6, 2025, at the Cultural and Arts Center of NaUKMA, and has since been shown in Odesa and Lima. Its latest edition in Iquitos marks the realization of a vision that began one year ago in the rainforest itself.