A photo series by Oliver Ressler
2023
Six photographic images show formations randomly drawn into the sand by waves. The drawings on the beach are astonishing, reminding us of flames.
The photos were taken on Vancouver Island in 2022, a year when atmospheric CO2 reached 417 ppm. No such concentration of greenhouse gas has ever occurred before since humans first lived on the planet. Storms, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires – all resulting from the burning of once-living plant and animal bodies as fossil fuel sources – will lead to a conversion from “living” to “dead” across multiple species and on a massive scale. Forests, an essential source of planetary life, are being burned at an ever-accelerating rate, endangering human life and more-than-human life.
Each photograph is combined with a few lines freely adapted from Joanne Maria McNally’s poem The Phoenix (2008).
Canopy Cut Down to Sand warns that capitalist ecocide is not only real-time human self-destruction, but also annihilation of the past and the indefinite future.
Photography: Nicolas Lampert
Design: Raphael Volkmer
Research and editing: Matthew Hyland
Poem freely adopted from Joanne Maria McNally
