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\n Zed Nelson spots the painting on the wall behind me almost as soon as we begin our interview.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s perfect,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The canvas depicts a sleeping tiger draped across a velvet cushion, floating among pastel-shade leaves and flowers. The London-based photographer doesn\u2019t mean \u201cperfect\u201d as in \u201cmasterfully painted;\u201d he means it\u2019s the perfect metaphor for the idealized, human-centric relationship we\u2019ve cultivated with nature.\n <\/p>\n
\n The painting reminds him of another artwork, \u201cA young Tiger Playing With Its Mother<\/a>,\u201d by the French Romantic artist Eugene Delacroix, who used a captive tiger at a zoo and his pet cat as models.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe Romantic movement in painting began with the human divorce from the natural world. As we removed ourselves from nature, and it receded from our imagination, we reenacted these hyper-romantic versions of nature,\u201d said Nelson.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s the central thesis of his latest project, \u201cThe Anthropocene Illusion<\/a>,\u201d which earned him Photographer of the Year<\/a> at the 2025 Sony World Photography Awards. Captured across 14 countries and four continents over six years, the images show nature as imagined by humans: staged habitats in zoos, manufactured ski slopes, indoor rainforests, and artificial beaches.\n <\/p>\n \n In his previous project, \u201cLove Me,\u201d Nelson explored the homogenization of beauty standards. \u201cThere\u2019s some echo of that here. It\u2019s about how this artificial, idealized version of nature is being \u2014 I mean, I want to say sold back to us, but we\u2019re willing participants in it, too,\u201d Nelson explained.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhile we destroy the real thing, we seem to be creating more and more artificial or choreographed, curated versions of nature.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s this \u201cpsychological disconnect\u201d that Nelson is most interested in exposing. The collection is equal parts ironic (a Maasai <\/strong>tribesman posing beside a picnic blanket for an \u201cOut of Africa\u201d champagne brunch in Kenya) and dystopian (a child perched on a fiberglass rock at a beach in the world\u2019s largest indoor rainforest, the canvas of the sky slightly ripped behind him).\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThat\u2019s very sort of Truman Show-esque. He\u2019s gone to the very edge of that artificial world,\u201d said Nelson of the photo.\n <\/p>\n \n More than anything, though, there\u2019s a feeling of sadness that permeates the collection: taxidermied museum dioramas of endangered species; vibrant fish shoals swimming in dark aquariums with plastic pipes, captive elephants paraded to a bathing spot for the benefit of flocks of Instagram influencers; a caged polar bear crouched beside a mural depicting an Arctic landscape it will never know.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhat we replaced real nature with becomes an unwitting monument, really, for what we\u2019ve lost,\u201d Nelson observed.\n <\/p>\n \n The term \u201cAnthropocene<\/a>\u201d refers to the age of humans<\/a>. It\u2019s not an official epoch<\/a> \u2014 yet. But Nelson believes firmly that, in years to come, today\u2019s society will mark the beginning of this new era, evident in elevated carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuels, an abundance of microplastics,<\/a> and layers of concrete.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe usefulness of renaming an epoch, in this instance, would be to focus people\u2019s attention on our impact on the planet,\u201d said Nelson. As he sees it, \u201cthe language of (environmental action) has become sort of tired or stale; you become kind of immune to it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n He wanted to counter this collective numbness with visuals that \u201cmake you think or feel differently.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Bleak but beautiful, his photos reveal a paradox.\n <\/p>\n \n Less than 3% of the world\u2019s land remains ecologically intact, according to a 2021 study<\/a>, yet nature-based tourism and biophilic architecture, a design philosophy<\/a> that mimics nature, are surging in popularity. Global wildlife populations have dropped by an average of 73% in the last 50 years<\/a>; meanwhile, there are more tigers in captivity<\/a> than in the wild, globally.\n <\/p>\n \n Arctic ice sheets are on course for catastrophic \u201crunaway melting<\/a>\u201d that would see rising sea levels devastate coastal communities. But at the same time, cocktail bars in Dubai are importing ancient glacier ice<\/a> from Greenland to provide the wealthy with pollution-free drinks.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re engaged in creating an illusion for ourselves; either to hide what we\u2019re doing, or as something that we can retreat into for reassurance, because we crave the very thing that we\u2019ve lost,\u201d said Nelson.\n <\/p>\n \n There\u2019s a spectrum to the illusion, ranging from managed outdoor landscapes to contrived scenes that simply evoke the idea of nature.\n <\/p>\n \n Nelson likens it to fast food: \u201cWe don\u2019t want to grow it and prepare it; we just want it delivered to us with no thorns, no danger, with a nice walkway in a car park. We want to consume it and then come home. We are complicit in it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Despite his criticisms of the \u201cconsumerist\u201d qualities of today\u2019s manufactured natural experiences, Nelson emphasizes that he\u2019s not necessarily against any of these things: people should enjoy safaris, be awe-inspired at aquariums, relish their time in a local park, and not \u201cdestroy ourselves with guilt.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe have this enduring craving for nature, for a connection to the natural world. That\u2019s real,\u201d he observed.\n <\/p>\n \n There\u2019s a limit to what the individual can do, too: the kind of sweeping change required to protect the environment needs to come from major corporations and political leaders, which, in Nelson\u2019s view, is sorely lacking.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s important to remind ourselves, it\u2019s not that we don\u2019t have ideas for things that can be done,\u201d he said, reeling off a long list of environmental policies that could change the course of climate change.\n <\/p>\n \n Perhaps this book, with its stark juxtaposition of astonishing wildlife and human interference, can be a reminder of just how in control of the world we are \u2014 with the power to remodel it in our own image, or protect and restore the landscapes we feel so connected to.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhen you\u2019re surrounded by something so much, it can become utterly invisible,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cPhotography is a way of trying to make it visible again, trying to expose it for what it actually is.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n After the call ends, I can\u2019t unsee the Anthropocene illusion in my home. It\u2019s not just the anthropomorphic tiger on the wall. It\u2019s a Himalayan rock salt lamp, a plastic monstera plant and paper carnations. A cockatoo-shaped ceramic jug next to pine-scented candles and an aluminum \u201clemon-wedge\u201d bottle opener. Floral-print cushions and a jungle-themed throw.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s hard to shake Nelson\u2019s words about our collective complicity; our willingness to participate in reconstructing the natural world, instead of saving it.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link Zed Nelson spots the painting on the wall behind me almost as soon as…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":125267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,1033,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-125266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114985300458416828","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"'The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/bookcover-the-anthropocene-illusion.jpg\")
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