As the climate crisis worsens around the globe, its effects are no more apparent than in our oceans and the communities that rely on them. Delicate coral reefs, for example, face stresses from not only rising sea temperatures but the residue of human presence—plastics, castoff fishing equipment, and other waste.

Warm water is typically the culprit in coral bleaching events, characterized by algae leaving the organisms and turning them a ghostly white. The algae provides a food source and helps to protect the coral from disease, but when it goes, the host is left much more vulnerable. For Ana Brecevic (previously), this phenomenon inspires work that draws attention to this urgent issue.

Her recent series, Plasticum, reflects on the ever-growing problem of plastic pollution in the earth’s oceans while contrasting the beauty of marine ecosystems with their vulnerability to human impact. The artist meticulously cuts silhouettes of bleached corals and gorgonians—also known as sea fans—and ornaments them with baubles reminiscent of debris.

“I live along the Atlantic coast, where I collect marine waste that inspires and feeds into this body of work,” Brecevic says. “Everything is made from recycled paper, upcycled fabrics, and natural dyes.”

The artist describes Plasticum as “a quiet echo of a reality slowly settling in,” where microplastics and waste continually threaten underwater habitats and biodiversity. She says, “Through this work, I hope to spark questions about our connection to living ecosystems and what we choose to see—or overlook.”

Find more on Brecevic’s website and Instagram.

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In the 1985 film Out of Africa starring Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, a picturesque scene highlights the pair on a romantic picnic high above the sweeping Masai Mara National Reserve. Today, tourists are invited to recreate the iconic moment in a colonial-inspired, hillside champagne picnic experience for which “local Masaai tribesman are employed to provide picturesque authenticity to the experience,” photographer Zed Nelson says.

In his new book, The Anthropocene Illusion, Nelson takes us on a global journey that lifts the veil, so to speak, on what we think of as “wilderness” and our progressively uneasy relationship with the environment. “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,” he says.

The Anthropocene defines the ever-evolving, rapid changes to the environment due to humans’ unyielding impact. Many scientists place the epoch’s origin during the Industrial Revolution, but some consider 1945—the year humans tested the atomic bomb—to be the true beginning. Yet others suggest that the Anthropocene was initiated even earlier, during the advent of agriculture.

At that point, we entered into an increasingly uneasy relationship with the natural world, relying on ever-more extractive processes, heavy manufacturing, plastics, and advancing technology—all of which depend on the earth’s resources. Our societies’ colonialist tendencies also apply to nature just as much as other human-occupied territories.

We’re depleting entire aquifurs, forever altering the composition of the land, and irretrievably damaging delicate ecosystems. All the while, Nelson shows, we subscribe to a nostalgic view of untamed wilderness while at the same time expecting it to mold to our lifestyles.

In Kenyan national parks like Masai Mara, wildlife is provided sanctuary, “but the animals living within them are allowed to survive essentially for human entertainment and reassurance,” Nelson says. “These animals become, in effect, performers for paying tourists eager to see a nostalgic picture book image of the natural world.”

Nelson’s illuminating series taps into the absurdities of the illusion that nature is still thriving as it once was. Artificial snow shot from a cannon in the Italian Dolomites, for example, nods to warmer winters. A result of the climate crisis, leading to little snow, the powder is manufactured so holidaymakers can ski.

From vine-draped brutalist buildings to overcrowded national park lookouts to half-tame lions walked out like entertainers during a safari, he shares moments that feel skewed and incongruous, indicating looming and ultimately inescapable problems behind the veneer.

The Anthropocene Illusion series took first place in the professional category of the 2025 Sony World Photography Awards, and the book, which comes out this month, is available for pre-order in the Guest Editions shop. Ten percent of profits will be donated to Friends of the Earth, an environmental justice nonprofit. See more on Nelson’s Instagram.

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Depending on the day, you might look to the sky and see a sea of pale blue or a radiant sunset creeping toward the horizon. If you’re in a major metropolitan area, though, you might also be met with the characteristic red-brown haze of smog.

Berlin-based artist Macarena Ruiz-Tagle is behind the vibrant Cyanometer and Sunset postcards we’ve featured on Colossal (and that have sold out in our shop several times). But she also created a third version designed for those not-so-bright days.

The World Health Organization estimates that 99 percent of people on Earth breathe unsafe air, making Ruiz-Tagle’s Air Pollution postcard perhaps the most fitting for our era of climate catastrophe. While a stark contrast to the brilliant blues, yellows, and oranges of the other two, this design is awash in pale pinks and grays to match that of a gloomy, and even soiled, atmosphere. Like the others, the idea is to hold the work up to the sky and mark the corresponding hue before dropping it in the mail.

The interactive card shifts in meaning depending on whether the opening reveals a misty fog or air thick with chemicals, and it’s part of a growing movement to track climate data in a tangible, grassroots manner. “Separating the visual delight of being immersed in a cloud from the intoxicating reality of breathing heavily polluted air, the postcard evokes both the smog that engulfs global cities and the ethereal beauty of fog,” the artist writes. “In its mesmerizing aesthetic ambiguity, the work sustains a space for contemplation within our troubled atmosphere.”

Find all three postcards in the Colossal Shop, and explore more of Ruiz-Tagle’s work on her website.

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Upwards of 17 million commercial flights ferry passengers across U.S. airspace each year. (It’s more than twice that, in total, worldwide.) Those hundreds of thousands of vessels share the sky with winged things that have been around way, way longer than airliners, but it’s not always an easy relationship. Through the work of people like Norman Smith at Boston’s primary international terminal, we’re learning more every day about a remarkable species and their evolving ways of life.

“The Snowy Owls of Logan Airport” is a short documentary about Smith’s extraordinary work managing unexpected avian residents. Created by Anna Miller, who also runs The Animalia Podcast, the film highlights the unique migration patterns of the largest owls in North America and why they flock from the Arctic to such an unlikely destination every winter.

Smith has been working with snowy owls at Logan Airport since 1981. “They fly 3,000 miles just to get here,” he says. “We don’t know why they come down to the Boston area. Logan Airport has the highest concentration of snowy owls in the Northeast that we know of.”

The birds’ choice to land at a busy transportation hub might not be as surprising as you’d think at first. It comprises 1,800 acres of open fields, which resemble something like the tundra they call home farther north, full of rats and mice to eat. And on three sides, water provides another ample source of food. It might be loud, but they don’t seem to lose a wink.

Programs like the one at Logan Airport have been in place for decades following tragic incidents in which jet engines ingested birds, causing the planes to crash. One particular event in 1960 in Boston prompted airports around the nation to implement programs that managed bird populations, especially roosting areas, around active airfields. And while shooting avian species has historically been one method of removal, Smith is committed to a much more humane solution: moving them to safety elsewhere.

Snowy owls are considered “vulnerable” to extinction, and their populations are dwindling as the effects of the climate crisis continue to impact habitats in the Arctic. While it’s harder to predict what will happen in the coming years, Smith is dedicated to giving the birds he encounters the best chance of survival.

So far, he has single-handedly relocated more than 900 animals, been instrumental in implementing similar programs across the U.S., and hopes his passion for conservation and the urgent need to save these incredible creatures will influence future generations to do the same. (via Kottke)

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Through her tireless research and advocacy for the protection of the world’s oceans, Cristina Mittermeier has emerged as one of the most prominent conservation photographers. Along with Paul Nicklen, she co-founded SeaLegacy to focus on the impact of communication through art and science, confronting critical issues like endangered biodiversity and the climate crisis. She also founded the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP), a professional community focused environmental issues.

Acknowledging the negative and potentially disastrous effects of indifference, skepticism, and inaction, Mittermeier posits that one thing remains as important as ever. “HOPE may not be a plan or a strategy, but it is vital for our survival,” she says in an introductory note for her new book. “I ferociously reject apathy, cynicism, and fear, and with tenacity and determination, I choose kindness and Hope.”

Published by Hemeria, HOPE is organized into six chapters that highlight the myriad ways humanity and nature are fundamentally intertwined. The first, “Indigenous Wisdom,” features the knowledge and traditions of communities who tap into ancient ways of connecting with the earth. Additional chapters focus on the oceans, arctic realms, the afterlife, future generations, and how all of these elements are interwoven. Throughout, Mittermeier’s bold photographs of wildlife, remarkable landscapes, tribal rituals, and family bonds serve as reminders of incredible beauty, resilience, and determination.

Mittermeier travels the world, visiting remote communities, attending significant ceremonial events, and documenting fragile ecosystems. “Images can help us understand the urgency many photographers feel to protect wild places,” she says in a statement. She continues:

My work is about building a greater awareness of the responsibility of what it means to be human. It is about understanding that the history of every living thing that has ever existed on this planet also lives within us. It is about the ethical imperative—the urgent reminder that we are linked to all other species on this planet and that we have a duty to act as the keepers of our fellow life forms.

HOPE is available for purchase now in Hemeria’s shop and will be available widely in other retail locations this October. Dive into more of Mittermeier’s work on her website and Instagram.

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Inspired by nature’s myriad forms and relationships, Minneapolis-based artist Sonja Peterson creates sprawling scenes from intricately cut paper. Working intuitively while focusing on the environment and our place within it, she merges organic motifs and animals with humans and historical references.

The inherent simplicity of a blank piece of paper is a compelling attribute for Peterson, who is fascinated by the possibilities of texture, pattern, and the relationship between positive and negative space. Originally, the artist made drawings on large sheets, which she began to cut into in order to rearrange compositional elements. She became increasingly interested in the art of the incision and removed other media altogether.

“My choice of paper echoes the idea of the fragility that I want to convey as I look at the precariousness of ecological systems,” Peterson tells Colossal. “The works’ structural integrity is, at times, reliant on its interconnectivity; if elements disconnect, the entire system is in threat of collapsing.”

An overarching theme in Peterson’s work revolves around interconnection—both natural and human-made—highlighting how our global trade systems, manufacturing, and agriculture are fundamentally reliant on our environment, even as they contribute to an ever-growing climate crisis. She often combines human interactions with botanical details, like a sunken ship in “Lost and Searching” or the salient history of European colonialist expansion in “Empire Builder.”

The artist is interested in our “global systems as something of untamed wonder, a gaze that was once reserved for the natural world,” she says. She often juxtaposes botanical details with human-made structures, such as ships or buildings. “Nature is now often seen as contained patchwork or a constructed binary to a technological world that is now the wild frontier.”

Peterson’s work is currently on view in Nordic Echoes — Tradition in Contemporary Art at Scandinavia House, which runs from April 5 to August 2 in New York City. The show celebrates contemporary folk arts from the Upper Midwest, featuring more than 50 works by 24 artists. Find more on the Peterson’s website and Instagram.

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The first known postcard printed as a souvenir can be traced to Vienna in 1871, followed by commemorative cards for famous events like the completion of the Eiffel Tower in 1889 and the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. It wasn’t long before a fashion for picture postcards took the U.S. by storm throughout the first half of the 20th century.

For David Opdyke, the iconic correspondences form the groundwork for an artistic practice examining capitalism, globalization, consumerism, and our fraught and increasingly disconnected relationship with the environment. Occasionally darkly humorous yet steeped in a sense of foreboding, his uncanny scenes suggest what kind of world we might live in if we do nothing to stem the mounting climate crisis.

Opdyke summons idyllic coastlines, national parks, government monuments, wildlife, and civic infrastructure to weave “fractured yet cohesive topographies,” says Cristin Tierney Gallery, which is presenting the artist’s current solo exhibition, Waiting for the Future.

For nearly a decade, Opdyke has invoked the nostalgia of landscape postcards to interrogate the climate emergency within the context of American politics and geographies. “Through these carefully altered compositions, Opdyke merges the past and the future, presenting both urgent and inevitable visions of environmental upheaval,” the gallery says.

The artist often uses antique cards that he purchases on eBay, painting scenes of environmental disasters or discordances between nature and architecture. Alternating between cartoons and life-like portrayals of trees, animals, fires, and structures, his compositions range from single cards to wall-spanning assemblages, his gouache-painted details spreading from frame to frame.

In “Overlook,” for example, giant tentacles destroy bridges, rising sea water threatens cities, and huge fires rage in institutional buildings. A dome encloses a metropolis, a rocket named Mars 2 heads for a new home in the solar system, and an airplane banner advertises “Technology Will Save Us” in a bleak yet not unimaginable reality fueled by techno-utopianism.

In his large-scale “Enough of Nature,” Opdyke transforms natural landscapes into encampment sites for those displaced from their homes, and portions of the overall composition appear to dislodge from the main grid as if floating away.

Caught tenuously between outmoded industrial practices, shifting societal value systems, and a rapidly evolving climate crisis, Opdyke’s pieces point to once-idealized symbols of American progress to stress the dangers of ignoring our own impact on the environment.

Waiting for the Future underscores the precariousness of complacency, a “cautionary tale,” the gallery says, laying bare the fragility of our constructed environment.

The show continues through April 26 in New York City. Find more on the artist’s website.

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Involving more than 800 scientists from more than 400 institutions worldwide, Ocean Census has embarked on ten expeditions and numerous workshops—so far—with a sole aim: discovering new species in the “world’s greatest frontier.”

Last week, the organization announced that it had discovered 866 new species, further advancing our understanding of marine biodiversity. Among the finds is a newly identified guitar shark, which belongs to a distinctive group of animals that share characteristics of both sharks and rays.

Another revelation is the pygmy pipehorse, which was found off the coast of Africa—the first time the genus has been spotted outside of the cool waters of New Zealand. Ocean Census says:

These diminutive pipehorses are masters of camouflage, remaining elusive as they inhabit coral reefs and blend seamlessly into their surroundings. Many members of the family Syngnathidae—which also includes seahorses, seadragons, and pipefish—are classified as Threatened on the IUCN Red List due to habitat destruction, bycatch, and targeted fishing.

While 866 is a remarkable number of discoveries, Ocean Census has its work cut out. “The identification and official registration of a new species can take up to 13-and-a-half years—meaning some species may go extinct before they are even documented,” says a statement.

To address this lag and accelerate identification, the initiative was launched jointly in 2023 by The Nippon Foundation and Nekton with a mission to “close critical knowledge gaps before it’s too late.”

Oceans cover more than 70 percent of our planet’s surface, but these vast bodies of water remain largely unexplored. “Of the estimated one to two million marine species on Earth, only 240,000 are known to science,” Ocean Census says.

Currently on a 35-day expedition to the South Sandwich Islands, the project joins four additional programs, including Schmidt Ocean Institute, to search for new species off the South Atlantic Ocean’s volcanic archipelago. Find more on Ocean Census’s website.

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“In 2012, I found a piece of material in a rock pool that changed my life,” artist Mandy Barker says. “Mistaking this moving piece of cloth for seaweed started the recovery of synthetic clothing from around the coastline of Britain for the next ten years.”

Barker is known for her photographic practice that takes a deep dive into marine debris. Her work has been featured in publications like National Geographic, The Guardian, VOGUE, and many more. Often collaborating with scientists to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the earth’s oceans, she eloquently highlights its harmful impacts on marine habitats, wildlife, and all of us who depend on the ocean for sustenance.

Forthcoming from GOST Books, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections surveys the unexpected and out-of-place along British shores. At first glance, each specimen appears like a fragment of a leaf or a scatter of organic material, but upon closer inspection, the subjects of Barker’s images reveal details of unraveled polyester or scraps of nylon tights.

Barker hopes to raise awareness of the damaging effects of fast fashion, synthetic clothing, and the increasing amounts of microfibers in the oceans. The fashion industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all international flights and container ships combined and is also the second-largest consumer of water, requiring about 2,000 gallons of water to produce a single pair of jeans.

Barker’s new book is composed as an homage to the work of trailblazing botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (1799-1871), who is thought to be the first woman to take a photograph and the first person to publish a book containing photographic illustrations. Her 1843 study, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, employed blue photograms to illustrate photosynthetic organisms and seaweeds.

Barker’s work serves as a kind of sibling or sequel to Atkins’ pioneering publication, presented in a similar style with handwritten names in Latin beneath each specimen.

In their updated versions, the titles take Atkins’ scientific names as a starting point and tweak them just slightly to conjure references to clothing or the human body. In the plate titled “Dichloris vestis,” for example, Barker draws on a real type of algae Atkins catalogued, Dichloria viridis, but “vestis” is instead a tongue-in-cheek reference to outerwear, often made of polyester or other synthetic materials. “Conferva tibia,” which portrays frayed tights, employs the Latin word for “leg.”

From John o’ Groats at the northernmost tip of Great Britain to Land’s End at its southernmost, Barker recovered specimens of clothing from more than 120 beaches. Her finds, ranging from parkas to wigs to sports jerseys, were pulled from the sand, tide pools, or directly from the sea. In Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections, Barker looks to the past to better understand how our actions in the present have both immediate impacts and will shape the future of the climate crisis.

Find your copy on GOST’s online store, where signed editions are also available, and explore more of Barker’s work on her website and Instagram.

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In the Jordanian desert, Syrian families displaced by war huddle atop stacks of boxes like stalwart islands in a dry and unforgiving landscape. Photographer Nick Brandt captures children, siblings, and entire families who stand together and climb skyward like monuments or promontories—what the artist describes as “pedestals for those that in our society are typically unseen and unheard.”

The series marks the fourth chapter in an ongoing series called The Day May Break, which has taken Brandt around the world in search of visual stories illuminating the effects of the climate crisis.

Brandt began the series in 2020, reflecting on myriad experiences of “limbo,” both in the midst of the pandemic and relating to the tenuous ecological balance of our planet. In an essay accompanying Chapter One of The Day May Break, Brandt writes:

Nearly twenty years ago, I started photographing the wild animals of Africa as an elegy to a disappearing world. After some (too many) years seeing the escalating environmental destruction, I felt an urgent need to move away from that kind of work and address the destruction in a much more direct way.

Brandt began the series in Zimbabwe and Kenya, focusing the first chapter on portrayals of both people and animals that have been impacted by environmental degradation and destruction. Every person he documented was deeply affected by the changing climate. “Some were displaced by cyclones that destroyed their homes,” Brandt says. “For some, like Kuda in Zimbabwe, or Robert and Nyaguthii in Kenya, it was more tragic: both of them lost two young children, swept away by the floods.”

For Chapter Two, Brandt traveled to the Senda Verde Animal Sanctuary in Bolivia, where wildlife affected by trafficking and habitat destruction are cared for. And for Chapter Three, subtitled SINK/RISE, he took his camera into the ocean off the coast of Fiji, focusing on individuals whose livelihoods have been impacted by rising sea levels. Plunging decrepit furniture onto the sea floor, individuals and families interact with one another entirely underwater.

For the series’ newest addition, Chapter Four, subtitled The Echo of Our Voices, Brandt traveled to arid Jordan, one of the most water-scarce countries in the world. The dramatic black-and-white photos feature refugee families who fled the war in Syria. Perched on stacks of cubes, they transform into living monoliths, symbolic of resilience, surrounded by the rugged, sandy expanse.

The photographer says, “Living lives of continuous displacement largely due to climate change, they are forced to move their homes up to several times a year, moving to where there is available agricultural work—to wherever there has been sufficient rainfall to enable crops to grow.” Parents stand alongside their children; siblings embrace; and families are shown alternately gazing into the distance, turning to one another for comfort, or taking time to rest.

“This chapter is different from the first three chapters, both visually and emotionally: a show of connection and strength in the face of adversity; that when all else is lost, you still have each other,” Brandt says. Explore much more work on his website.

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