The Anthropocene Illusion
Zed Nelson
Guest Editions
10” x 11.8” (254 x 300mm)
196 pages
Including 75 color images, made over six years and across four continents
12pp index section with extended image descriptions and an essay by Zed Nelson
Casebound in a printed green Colorado cloth
Printed in the UK on Fedrigoni papers.
Zed Nelson’s The Anthropocene Illusion (Guest Editions) is one of those projects that comes along and transcends the genre of mere photobook to become something far more significant. In our modern world of *gestures broadly*, this book does more to communicate where we’re at as a species than perhaps any work of art I’ve yet encountered. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, yet photography continues to be such an underrated form of art. This title shows what’s possible when you harness those unsaid words within its pages, filling it with such rich and complex meaning and narrative, while simultaneously being beautiful to look at. Because of this I can’t help but consider it my favorite of the year for what it’s able to communicate. Of course, not everyone will see it this way. That, too, explains how we’ve ended up where we are. *gestures broadly*
From Guest: "While we destroy the natural world around us, we have become masters of a stage-managed, artificial ‘experience’ of nature—a reassuring spectacle, an illusion."
Over six years, across four continents, Zed Nelson has examined how we humans immerse ourselves in increasingly simulated environments to mask our destructive divorce from the natural world. From theme parks, zoos and natural history museums, to national parks, African safaris and alpine resorts, this work reveals not only a global phenomenon of denial and collective self-delusion, but also a craving for a connection to a world we have turned our back on.
In a fraction of our Earth’s history, we humans have altered our world beyond anything it has experienced in tens of millions of years. Scientists are calling it a new epoch, The Anthropocene – the age of human. We have concentrated in cities and divorced ourselves from the land we once roamed and from other animals. Yet we cannot face the true scale of our loss.
This work reflects on how, at a time of environmental crisis, a consoling version of nature has been packaged as a curated ‘experience’ – an illusionary spectacle designed to obscure and reassure.
