In a tiny fraction of Earth’s history, humans have altered the 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.
Future geologists will find evidence in the rock strata of an unprecedented human impact on our planet, from huge concentrations of plastics to the fallout from the burning of fossil fuels, and vast deposits of concrete used to build our cities. We are forcing animals and plants to extinction by removing their habitats, and divorcing ourselves from the land we once roamed. Yet we cannot face the true scale of our loss. Somewhere within us the desire for contact with nature remains.
‘So, while we devastate the world around us, we have become masters of a stage-managed, artificial ‘experience’ of nature – a reassuring spectacle, an illusion.’ (Zed Nelson) Over six years, and across four continents, he explored how we immerse ourselves in increasingly choreographed and simulated environments to mask our destructive impact on 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.

But this is not just another photography project about our destruction of the planet, the language of which, Nelson recognises, has “become somewhat clichéd or overly familiar”. He alludes to the kind of photographs we have all seen countless times before – polar bears surviving on a shrinking piece of ice; burning smokestacks in China – and says while it is still important to document such things:
“I wanted to approach the issue from a different visual and psychological angle. I have always appreciated the capacity of photography to become a historical artefact. But that’s not why I’m doing this. I am less interested in preserving some image of what is lost than considering the world that we are creating through our behaviour, through our politics, through our environmental priorities. To me, it’s not all done and dusted. It’s not just a matter of photographing the last parakeet in Borneo… I want the work to not just be a historical record, but to be a motivating, thought-provoking piece in the puzzle that we’re all engaged in.”

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.

This project won the Cortona On The Move Award; Zed Nelson was awarded Photographer of the Year at the 2025 Sony World Photography Awards.