The Oldest Living Things in the World

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An epic journey through time and space, this work showcases artist Rachel Sussman's decade-long quest to photograph continuously living organisms that are 2,000 years old and older. Spanning continents from Antarctica to Greenland and environments like the Mojave Desert and the Australian Outback, Sussman presents a stunning visual collection of ancient organisms, narrated insightfully and accessibly. Her work, driven by relentless curiosity and underscored by environmentalism, begins at “year zero,” capturing the past in the present. The ancient individuals she documents include Greenlandic lichens that grow just one centimeter a century, unique desert shrubs in Africa and South America, predatory fungi in Oregon, Caribbean brain coral, and an 80,000-year-old aspen colony in Utah. Sussman ventured to Antarctica for 5,500-year-old moss, Australia for stromatolites linked to Earth's oxygenation, and Tasmania for a 43,600-year-old self-propagating shrub. Her portraits reveal the living history of our planet and the threats posed by climate change and human encroachment, as two subjects have already perished due to human actions. Alongside the photographs, Sussman shares captivating tales of her global adventures and insights from scientists, creating a record and celebration of the past while serving as a call to action for the future.