Endangered

The IUCN Red List detailing more that 12,000 threatened animal species, spurred Erik Hijweege to embark on his Endangered series. For this series the inspired artist employed an historic photographic technique invented in 1851 to photograph threatened species deep-frozen in ice. Using the wet plate collodion process, Hijweege has made unique glass prints of animals whose beauty fires the imagination but are threatened in their survival, like the Sumatran tiger, hawksbill turtle, polar bear, black rhinoceros and whale shark. By capturing these vulnerable species in ice and depicting them by means of a process that harks back to the beginnings of photography, Erik Hijweege creates confusion. His images set the viewer thinking. Are these animals encased in ice the last of their kind? Or have they been deep frozen in hope of better times and fresh scientific insights?