Rachel Sussman “The Oldest Living Things in the World” at Pioneer Works

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Brooklyn-based contemporary artist and 2014 Guggenheim Fellow Rachel Sussman brings her largest solo exhibition to date of The Oldest Living Things in the World to Pioneer Works: Center for Art and Innovation in Red Hook, Brooklyn, from September 13-November 2. Curated by Christina Costello, formerly of The Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition will feature 35 photographs – including 47”x57” editions of five made from medium format film – accompanying writings, and a site-specific installation of her research materials and ephemera.

Since 2004, Sussman has been researching and traveling the globe in search of its oldest inhabitants — continuously living things 2,000 years of age or more.  Working with leading scientists, she captured everything from multi-millennial trees to 5,500-year-old moss to half-million-year-old bacteria, traveling from Antarctica to Greenland to the Mojave Desert to the Australian Outback, artfully cataloguing these ancient survivors through her photographs and writing. In a nod to scientific field notes, Sussman hand-titles each work, comprised of: the organism name, date photographed, catalog number, age, and location.

Pioneer Works Main Space, 159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn