The Fossil Era: A Carbon Interlude

The Fossil Era – A Carbon Interlude is a seven-part photographic sequence tracing the passage from deep geological time to the ecological consequences of fossil modernity. The series is framed by living forms: it begins with unfurling ferns, whose ancient lineage evokes the Carboniferous forests from which much of today’s coal originated, and ends with a colony of northern gannets on Île Rouzic as an image of ecological persistence. Between these two poles, carbon moves through different states. A close view of layered rock suggests compressed time and buried organic matter. Industrial structures then transform this stored past into mechanical power and combustion. A factory landscape, with smoke rising above homes and hills, places fossil energy within the inhabited present rather than at a distant site of extraction. The later images turn towards climatic aftermath. Damaged and leafless trees in Silent Spring register heat stress, fire and ecological depletion. A fragment of architecture standing in the sea introduces flooding and rising water levels, making the boundary between land and water appear provisional. The final image does not offer a simple resolution. The gannets’ collective movement suggests resilience, yet their exposed island habitat also remains vulnerable. The title describes the fossil-fuel age as an interlude: brief when measured against geological and evolutionary time, but transformative in its effects. Across the sequence, carbon links plant life, geological storage, industrial production, settlement, atmospheric change and threatened ecosystems. The photographs do not illustrate a single event; together they construct a temporal arc in which the deep past remains active within the environmental conditions of the present.