The Anthropocene Illusion

Nature as spectacle – curated, chlorinated and utterly controlled. Zed Nelson’s images are beautiful, bleak, and impossible to ignore, says Peter Dench

- by Zed Nelson

£45, Guest Editions, May 2025, 196 pages, 75 colour images, 254 x 300mm, Casebound in cloth with foiled embossed title: ISBN: 9781736234559

Zed Nelson has long been one of photography's sharpest-eyed social critics, and with The Anthropocene Illusion, he delivers his most visually seductive sucker punch to date. Traversing fourteen countries across four continents over six years, Nelson turns his lens on the fabricated wilderness we increasingly accept as nature – plastic palm trees, piped birdsong, and climate-controlled 'safaris' complete with Prosecco and Wi-Fi.