Following from Darwin’s theory of evolution, we are the extension of plants and animals—therefore, human beings can also be defined as a part of “nature.” Despite this fact, when looking for “nature,” most people ignore the human component and praise only the parts that are green and lush and “wild.” I think this rationale is based on the excessive guilt we feel as a society, a guilt stemming from the ceaseless advancement of modern technology and development all over the planet.

So, I started this project as an antithesis to the “old” idea of nature that is displayed on Google search. I intentionally collected photographs that I felt displayed the unnaturalness of human existence and a sense of “weirdness made by artifact.”

I want to affirm our everyday environments that are full of human egoism—it is a crucial and unavoidable element to the appearance of “modern nature.”

—Mankichi Shinshi

Editors’ note: You can follow Shinshi’s work on his personal website.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like these previous features: Stardust, Debashish Chakrabarty’s pensive, poetic contemplation of the cosmos and the fluid nature of time; Threads, a series of embroidered photographs that meditate on our relationship with nature and the environment; and Sun, Earth, Energy, Life: Coal, a series of microcosmic abstractions that pay homage to the mineral’s remarkable composition.