LAST MIGRATION
Our encounters with the animal kingdom begin shortly after birth. We learn the alphabet using aardvarks and zebras. We make friends with teddy bears. We watch cartoons featuring talking turtles and rascally rabbits. Our childhoods are intertwined with animals in a profound, ever-present way.
Given our early attachment to animals it’s surprising that as adults many people are indifferent to the fate of wild creatures. It’s well publicized that a wide range of animals are threatened by human activity, yet in most cases their numbers continue to decline. In the future will we be left with nothing more than plastic toys as proxies for the real thing? Is the animal last migration from flesh to plastic?
The images in Last Migration are all toy animals in real habitats. I try to find landscapes without clues as to their scale. The polar bear, for example, is on the beach atop a film of water left by a receding wave. For an instant the water is still and reflects the sky. Then another wave comes roaring in, knocking the bear over while I try not to get soaked—the camera is only two inches above the wet sand.
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