Rachel Sussman is on a quest to celebrate the resilience of life by identifying and photographing continuous-living organisms that are 2,000 years or older, all around the world.
Why you should listen
For the past five years, Rachel Sussman has traveled around the globe photographing organisms that have lived for more than 2,000 years. From 500,000-year-old actinobacteria in the Siberian permafrost a lone spruce standing on a mostly barren mountain in Sweden, her images capture both the robustness and fragility of life. While these organisms' longevity dwarfs even that of human civilization, they all depend on ecosystems in fine balance -- a balance thrown into question by human encroachment and climate change.
Sussman's work has been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe in venues including the Museum of Natural History.
What others say
The collection offers a rare perspective of life on Earth. Some of the organisms Sussman has captured look alien. Many were alive in the bronze age. Others were eking out an existence long before modern humans rose up and migrated out of Africa.
Rachel Sussman’s TED Talk
More news and ideas from Rachel Sussman
Science
Gallery: The oldest living things in the world
May 29, 2014
Rachel Sussman is obsessed with very old things that are still alive. She has spent years researching and tracking down the world's oldest organisms. Here, take a look at just some of her photographs, and watch her 2010 TED Talk on the topic.
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The world’s oldest living things: Rachel Sussman on TED.com
September 3, 2010
Rachel Sussman shows photographs of the world’s oldest continuously living organisms — from 2,000-year-old brain coral off Tobago’s coast to an “underground forest” in South Africa that has lived since before the dawn of agriculture. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2010, July 2010 in Oxford, UK. Duration: 14:09) [ted id=948] Watch Rachel Sussman’s talk on TED.com where […]
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