Species

Making its debut at Sydney Contemporary 2024,  Species is a spectacular 2024 series from leading contemporary artist, Magnum photographer and master in his field Trent Parke.

Photographs from Species garnered international acclaim after being shown at Milan Design Week in a touring exhibition specially commissioned by Magnum Photos and Veuve Clicquot. A centrepiece of the series was also selected for Australia’s most prestigious photo-based media award, the William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize.

Captured through an extraordinary feat of endurance and technical wizardry, Species is a thrilling synthesis of Parke’s singular skill and aesthetic sensibilities. “Shooting directly into the sun, with what could be considered a telescope, is a challenge in itself,” says the artist, who lensed his subjects from a distance of 700 metres. “It was 1/2000th of a second, but three months in the making.”

The resulting pictures cast halcyon waterside scenes in a mythic light, with figures silhouetted against a monumental orb while leaping into glinting waters turned molten gold.

“The sun has always been a symbol of the great clock in the sky … the ultimate force of life,” says Parke, who, in 2007, became the first Australian inducted as a full member of Magnum Photos – a distinction he holds to this day.

The acute awareness of time that underpins his ultra-precise process rhymes beautifully with the air of nostalgia that breezes through his images, with the waning sun giving its final bursts of brilliance as swimmers seek ecstatic reprieve from the summer heat.

Parke sees Species as a meeting of two “symbols of universal energy” – the sun and the ocean melting together in a sumptuous pool of colour.