Post-Nature
2024
This series "Post-Nature" uses my original photography layered with discarded man-made plastic detritus to reflect our collective disregard for the Earth as we doomscroll and bingewatch the Fall of Rome on reality tv. We have so distanced ourselves from mother nature that, shrink-wrapped as we are, we forget that we are her children, made of the same raw materials as the trees, the rivers, the stars.
Surely there’s some obscure old word in an ancient language for this feeling that those of us alive and awake at this moment in time have...to hold both beauty and heartbreak in the palm of one hand.
Microplastic pollution has reached every part of the planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. People are already known to consume the tiny particles via food and water, and to breathe them in.
Their effect in the body is yet unknown but scientists say there is an urgent need to assess the issue, particularly for infants. In October, scientists revealed that babies fed formula milk in plastic bottles are swallowing millions of particles a day.
Microplastic particles have been revealed in the placentas of unborn babies for the first time, which the researchers said was “a matter of great concern”.
“It is like having a cyborg baby: no longer composed only of human cells, but a mixture of biological and inorganic entities,” said Antonio Ragusa, director of obstetrics and gynecology at the San Giovanni Calibita Fatebenefratelli hospital in Rome, and who led the study published in the journal Environment International.
