Botanisches Museum - Galerieausstellung

For the past 5 years I have been photographing the Oldest Living Things in the World. These are – by my own definition – continuously living organisms 2,000 years old and older. So far I have photographed over 25 different organisms worldwide, ranging from an 80,000-year-old clonal colony of male Aspen trees living on a mountainside in Utah, to half a million year old bacteria living in permafrost in Siberia to a 2,000-year-old primitive conifer in the Namibian desert. An index of millennia-old organisms has never before been compiled in the arts or the sciences. I endeavor to be as accurate as possible in dating these organisms, working with a varied set of experts – evolutionary biologists, mycologists, dendrochronologists . Whenever possible, I meet with them directly in the field.
I approach these organisms in a manner more akin to portraiture than to landscape photography, with an eye towards revealing their literal forms, as well as considering the conceptual framework of “Deep Time”.
The work is primarily made with medium format color film and displayed in Berlin as 16x20 inch archival pigment exhibition prints. Some of the images are made using digital optical microscopy, underwater equipment, and large format film in the studio.
This body of work is not yet complete. Over the coming two years, I plan to find and photograph approximately ten more organisms including a 5,000-year-old moss living on the Antarctic Peninsula, a 43,000-year-old shrub, King’s Lomatia, in Tasmania, and a 4,000-year old Cypress in Iran.
All of these organisms have lived for two millennia or more, in deserts, in the permafrost, on the tops of mountains and at the bottom of the ocean. They have quietly endured, surviving all manner of natural perils and human exploitations. However, some of them are now in jeopardy, and they can’t just get up and get out of the way. The Oldest Living Things in the World are a record and celebration of our past, a warning call in the present and a barometer of our future.
It’s my hope that by going out and photographing these remarkable organisms, and by creating a means in which to consider them both across disciplines and across continents, that I can not only lend a hand in ensuring their continued longevity, but also inspire others towards substantive thinking about our collective future.

Sagole Baobab #0707-00505 (2,000 years old; Limpopo Province, South Africa) Adansonia digitata

Spruce Gran Picea #0909-6B37 (9,550 years old; Fulufjället, Sweden) Picea spec.