The oldest living things in the world is a project by Rachel Sussman on organisms 2,000 years old and older.
The work spans disciplines, continents, and millennia: it’s part art and part science, has an innate environmentalism, and is underscored by an existential incursion into Deep Time. I begin at ‘year zero,’ and look back from there, exploring the living past in the fleeting present.
In this gallery:
1. Antarctic Moss (5,500 years old, Antarctica)
2. Welwitschia Mirabilis (2,000 years old, Namibia)
3. Spruce Gran Picea (9,550 years old, Sweden)
4. Jomon Sugi, Japanese Cedar (2,180-7,000 years old, Japan)
5. Bristlecone Pine (more than 5,000 years old, California)
6. La Llareta (up to 3,000 years old, Chile)
The author poses this interesting question:
What does it mean to capture a multi-millennial lifespan in 1/60th of a second?
