In an ongoing series of elegant, largely landscape-driven photographs, Brooklyn-based photographer Rachel Sussman focuses her lens on what are definitively the oldest living organisms in the world (i.e. plants, forestry, coral, and fungi that have been around for upwards of 2,000 years). The project, titled “The Oldest Living Things,” has taken Sussman everywhere from Greenland to Tobago to Fish Lake, Utah (where she shot an 80,000-year-old network of trees). She works closely with biologists in each locale to locate and date her subjects and, to her credit, it’s been a mutually beneficial endeavor: before Sussman came along there was no artistic or scientific index of what she calls “global species longevity.” Sussman’s project has an environmental edge to it as well, drawing our attention to these twisted, knobby, misshapen, and monumental feats of mindboggling sustainability.
Photos: © 2010 Rachel Sussman – www.RachelSussman.com
