Imagining the Posthuman

A central focus of both my own creative work and the collaborative photographic work with Eric Zeigler is to re-envision forest ecosystems and deep time in the context of non-anthropocentric and critical posthumanist aesthetics. Eric and I are co-authoring a review chapter on Posthumanist Plant Aesthetics for the Palgrave Handbook of Posthumanism (to be published in 2027). In parallel, we have contributed a photo-essay of our own work envisioning critical posthumanist aesthetics to the International Journal of Contemporary Humanities.

The photo-essay includes seven of our images, five of which are from our October 2025 photo-trip to California (prior to the opening of our three-month-long exhibition at the College of the Sequoias), and two of which are from my August 2023 trip to Namibia.

  • Baobob (Adansonia digitata L., Nkasa Lupala National Park, Namibia | reflected visible light [desaturated]). © 2023 by Eric Zeigler + Aaron Ellison
  • A single Giant Sequoia (Sequoia National Park, California, USA | Reflected ultraviolet light) could yield hundreds of thousands of board feet of lumber (enough to build 50 or more wood-framed houses) or enough cordwood to heat all of those houses for several winters. © 2025 by Eric Zeigler + Aaron Ellison
  • Seedlings of Giant Sequoias grow beneath a charred and fallen trunk burned in a recent fire (Calaveras Big Tree State Park, California, USA | Digital collodion). © 2025 by Eric Zeigler + Aaron Ellison
  • A family of Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.) J.Buchh., Sequoia National Park, California, USA | Reflected visible light). © 2025 by Eric Zeigler + Aaron Ellison
  • Call us The Resistance (Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.) J.Buchh., Sequoia National Park, California, USA | Reflected ultraviolet light). © 2025 by Eric Zeigler + Aaron Ellison
  • We are The Resilient (Welwitschia mirabilis Hook.f., Welwitschia Plains, Namib Desert, Namibia | Reflected near-infrared light). © 2023 by Eric Zeigler + Aaron Ellison
  • A fallen Coast Redwood regenerates a forest (Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, California, USA | Digital collodion). © 2025 by Eric Zeigler + Aaron Ellison

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