While “The First” is an optimistic series where I look at people, moments or object that changed the world in a positive way, “The Last” is a series of black-and-white only, minimal drawings of species that disappeared or at least were declared extinct by scientists, since the year of my birth, 1977. As many of my projects, this is choosing to frame the topic subjectively, by relating it to my life-time, but at the same time it refers to an objective reality, where more species are dying now than have done in centuries. The research I’m making is difficult and sometimes inconclusive; species that were thought extinct for decades are making a comeback, or the last individual of a species having been seen years ago is not a certitude that the species is extinct. Yet, each such case that is not offering me proof enough to make it into a subject of a drawing is also a reason for confidence. A moderate confidence though, for if I was to make drawings of the endangered species rather than the extinct ones I would have to draw every hour to keep the pace.
