CONTINENTAL DRIFT

About the Project:

Continental Drift is an ambitious multimedia documentary created in partnership with the renowned photography collective Magnum Photos and MSNBC. It explores the largest migrant crisis in human history. By 2016, over 60 million people around the world were displaced, stateless, scared, and fleeing war and persecution. “We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement, as well as the response required, is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. To capture the complexity and global scope of this crisis, we sent ten Magnum photographers across the world. Each focused on a specific region and story documenting displacement, exile, conflict, persecution, and resilience. Together, their work forms a larger, more nuanced narrative of this unprecedented moment in history.

We launched the project with this introduction, using Magnum’s extensive archives from World War II and the 20th century to trace the sociopolitical forces that brought us to the present. This opening chapter places today’s crisis in historical context. In the following chapters: Moises Saman documented the migration routes into Europe, Alex Majoli traveled to China to cover the world's largest annual human migration, Mark Power visited refugee camps in Jordan, Lorenzo Meloni spent months in Libya, the gateway of African migration, Larry Towell reported from Mexico’s southern border, Matt Black followed humanitarian aid from Dubai to South Sudan, Bieke Depoorter met European families who opened their homes to migrants, Newsha Tavakolian profiled displaced Sudanese athletes in a Kenyan refugee camp, later known as “Team Refugee”, Michael Christopher Brown explored climate-driven displacement in the Marshall Islands, and Jérôme Sessini concluded the series with a look at U.S. sanctuary cities under threat. (Links to selected chapters can be found at the bottom of this page)

My Role:

For a year, I led a multidisciplinary team of designers, writers, editors, data visualization journalists, engineers, and developers to create an immersive, custom digital feature for MSNBC.com. Hosted on a standalone microsite, the eleven-chapter project was developed in collaboration with Magnum Photos, who first approached me with the concept. While Magnum handled the production of the photography in the field, my team was responsible for all aspects of presentation and storytelling. We partnered with editorial, design, development, marketing, sales, and finance teams to execute a cohesive strategy. Each chapter launched monthly over the course of a year, as the work was shot. We also designed a coordinated social media campaign with the launch of each chapter across multiple platforms, growing a far-reaching and engaged audience internationally. The project went on to win multiple awards and successfully raised awareness and sparked public discourse around severely under-reported issues.

Involvement

Executive Director

Client

MSNBC / Magnum Photos

Credits

Photographs by Magnum Photos (Moises Saman, Alex Majoli, Mark Power, Lorenzo Meloni, Larry Towell, Matt Black, Bieke Depoorter, Newsha Tavakolian, Michael Christopher Brown, and Jérôme Sessini

Written by Tony Dokoupil & Amanda Sakuma

Lead Design by Meagan Choi, Mina Liu & Peter Chao