‘People can’t imagine something on that scale dying’: Anohni on mourning the Great Barrier Reef

‘When someone’s dying, they throw their life force into a final expression. That’s what coral bleaching is’ … Anohni, of Anohni and the Johnsons. Photograph: Anohni Hegarty

Anohni Hegarty is about to go to the Great Barrier Reef for the first time. “I feel like I’m going to Auschwitz,” she says nervously. “On the one hand, I’m so excited to go because the landscape is so beautiful, and I know there’s going to be so much that’s gorgeous. And yet, I’m also scared.”

In a week, the British-born, New York-based avant garde singer of Anohni and the Johnsons is flying to Lizard Island, a paradise of powdery sands on the reef, 1,600km north-west of Brisbane. Its luxury villas and bluest of blue waters are a stark contrast to the grim nature of Anohni’s assignment: documenting the current state of the world’s biggest coral reef.