RACHEL SUSSMAN: THE OLDEST LIVING THINGS IN THE WORLD

Photographer Rachel Sussman has been travelling the globe for the past 10 years, searching for the world’s oldest living things with her camera. From the Mojave Desert to the Australian Outback to Greenland’s icy expanses, she has captured portraits of organisms capable of lasting for 80,000 years.

Her work is a little removed from some of my own ideas and I certainly do not have the budget to travel but I love her images. In my global warming pieces it is no good just banging on about we are damaging our planet and are likely to destroy it. Sometimes you need to simply marvel at what our planet is and the amazing ichness and diversity of the natural world to fully appreciate the beauty that we  risk destroying. This needs to come across in my work it cannot be just perfunctory and all message it needs to show the audience what they could be missing unless things change.

Sussman's images are of this planet but also otherworldly and her oldest living things in the planet (some 2000 years old!) helps to shine a light on our planet’s resilience in the face of human intervention.  In an interview for Brain Pickings Sussman wrote. “Extreme longevity can lull us into a false sense of permanence... but being old is not the same as being immortal.”