Since 2004, Brooklyn-based artist Rachel Sussman has explored harsh climates from Antarctica to the Mojave Desert to photograph the world’s oldest living organisms. This includes Pando, an aspen colony in Utah with a root system around 80,000 years old, and the Llareta plants in South America, which grow 1.5 cm annually and live for over 3,000 years. Despite their longevity, such ecosystems face threats from climate change and human activity.

Her photographs are meditations on “deep time” – timescales that are outside of our human, physiological experience of time – and often show the most versatile adaptation to the harsh climate conditions these organism are living in.