Featuring more than 450 awe-inspiring images curated by Stephen Ellcock, Ark is a celebration of the living wonders of this planet.
Stephen Ellcock - renowned curator and author of The Cosmic Dance, Underworlds and Elements - brings together an amazing selection of images from a broad range of cultures and eras, depicting living wonders from all five kingdoms of nature.
This visual treasury also features a foreword by Robert Macfarlane, an essay on the stories of the ark by acclaimed author Sarah Perry, and three inspiring essays on the natural world by tree scientist Harriet Rix, marine biologist Helen Scales and birder Stephen Moss. Each writer guides readers through some of the intricate, life-sustaining relationships that populate nature's elemental realms of earth, water and air, and outlines some of the threats that climate change and human actions pose. Symbols throughout pinpoint which of the species pictured are critically endangered or vulnerable.
Ark is a celebration of the myriad lifeforms inhabiting our planet and a powerful environmental call to arms.
About the Author :
Stephen Ellcock is a world-renowned archivist, author and image alchemist whose singular eye and unique curation bring new meaning to the visual world, provoking new ways of seeing and restoring the pleasure of looking. His decade-long quest to build the ultimate virtual museum has captivated over 650,000 followers worldwide and reawakened the visual senses of many. He is also the author of The Cosmic Dance; Underworlds; Elements; All Good Things; The Book of Change; England on Fire, with text by Mat Osman; and Stephen Ellcock's Book of Textiles.
Robert Macfarlane is Professor of Literature and the Environmental Humanities at the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His writing about landscape, nature, memory, language and travel has won many prizes internationally, including the E. M. Forster Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2017. His books have been widely adapted for TV, film and radio and he has collaborated with artists, film-makers, photographers and musicians, including Johnny Flynn and Jackie Morris.
Sarah Perry is the author of the bestselling novels Melmoth, The Essex Serpent and After Me Comes the Flood, and non-fiction title, Essex Girls. The Essex Serpent was awarded Waterstones Book of the Year and the British Book Awards Book of the Year and, in 2022, was adapted for Apple TV+. She is Chancellor of the University of Essex and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Harriet Rix is a tree science consultant and author of The Genius of Trees: How Trees Mastered the Elements and Shaped the World. Harriet has worked at the Tree Council and as secretary of Hedgelink, the national advisory board on hedgerows. Her writing and photography have been published in the Financial Times, London Review of Books and Times Literary Supplement.
Helen Scales is a marine biologist, broadcaster and author of many books, including The Shell Spotter's Guide, What the Wild Sea Can Be and Spirals in Time, as well as several titles for children, such as Shells... and What They Hide Inside and Oceanopedia. She writes regularly for the Guardian and National Geographic, and is a storytelling ambassador for the Save Our Seas Foundation.
Stephen Moss is one of Britain's leading nature writers and broadcasters. He was the original producer of the BAFTA award-winning Springwatch. His bestselling books include a series of 'bird biographies' and Ten Birds that Changed the World. A lifelong naturalist, Stephen has travelled to all seven of the world's continents to watch wildlife.
