'What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.' Chief Seattle, American Indian chief of the Suquamish (1786-1866) For a man who has 'danced' with a 55-tonne sperm whale and come face to face with all manner of wild animals, including leopards, cheetahs and elephants, Gregory Colbert exudes calm. In fact, he appears almost unflappable, despite confessing that this is the most he has spoken in 13 years. It's a cool spring day in New York and the sun is finally making an appearance. Colbert, however, has been stuck indoors all day, conducting a barrage of interviews with journalists from around the world who are in the Big Apple for his Ashes and Snow exhibition. Despite the punishing schedule, he remains gracious - and is not at a loss for words when it comes to his life's work. The Canadian artist's 'silence' began 13 years ago, when he embarked on a remarkable quest to capture the mystical and unique relationship between man and beast through a quartet of mediums. He had just held his first public exhibitions at the Musee de l'Elysee in Switzerland and Parco Galleries in Japan. Then Colbert apparently disappeared off the face of the Earth, refusing all media interviews and declining to exhibit or publish his work. He swapped his life in Paris, where he made documentary films about social issues, to travel to distant lands and photograph humans interacting with 'nature's living masterpieces', as he calls them. 'The response from my first exhibition meant I was free to do the work that I really dreamed of doing,' Colbert says. Communication - or lack thereof - is the driving forces behind Colbert's inspiration. Concerned about the vanishing contact between humans and animals, he says Ashes and Snow attempts to recover a lost language. 'Something happens when you have a stroke. It is called aphasia and means you can't talk. Everyone is having a slow-motion stroke and this boundary between species and human beings is getting less compared with previous generations,' he says. 'I don't think I've spoken so much in the past 13 years as I have today.' Organised by the Bianimale Foundation, a non-profit organisation set up by Colbert and environmentalist Giuli Cordara, Ashes and Snow is a stunning compilation of 200 large-scale photographs, art installations, a novel in letters and a one-hour film narrated by actor Laurence Fishburne that encompasses Colbert's travels to more than 30 countries in his bid to 'rediscover a lost time when man and other animals lived as one'. The images exude poetic simplicity, Zen-like qualities and breathtaking beauty, where children, monks and women are at one with elephants, leopards, eagles, manatees, meercats, zebras, wild dogs and cheetahs. The humans are trance-like, all with their eyes closed, while the animals fearlessly look into the camera. Everybody is equal and at peace with each other. 'If you asked me 13 years ago that I would get this far, I would assume you were medicated,' Colbert says. 'I really think it is not just a thing to create; [Ashes and Snow] seems to have an urgency, that the world is a very different place now. '[When people see the exhibition], they say, 'I will never see nature in the same way.' Nature is a dictionary but it is [also] a poem. In other cultures, kids and indig-enous people treat animals as equals. I guess in past cultures, where people had an emotional understanding ... that is something I've always wanted to keep in balance.' Colbert's images are mind-blowing; more so upon learning that none of them have been digitally altered or superimposed. The animals roam freely during the picture-taking process, while his only direction for human subjects is to 'go inside themselves and trust the animal'. The sepia and umber tones give the photographs - printed in a distinctive encaustic process on handmade Japanese paper - a sense of timelessness; they could have been taken now or 100 years ago. Ashes and Snow has snared the attention of private collectors, including designer Donna Karan and Rolex chief executive Patrick Heiniger. Colbert's artistic odyssey was first shown in 2002 at the Venice Arsenale, a 125,000-square-foot, 15th-century shipyard owned by the Italian navy. Heiniger was so impressed with the exhibition he offered Colbert corporate sponsorship to keep Ashes and Snow together and in motion. 'He said to me, 'This project is a gift. If it is kept in motion, it will have exponential value. The company has a chance to put something back ... and it is something that people in New York will be absolutely flabbergasted by.' That somebody would have the courage to put it out there and not try to shoot the albatross is ... visionary and the bar has been raised.' Ashes and Snow is a work in progress, and Colbert will continue to add to it from future expeditions as it travels the world in its Nomadic Museum, itself a work of art. Designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, the building is a 45,000 sq ft temporary structure made of recyclable and reusable materials. The walls comprise 148 red, white and blue shipping containers stacked in a checkerboard pattern, while paper tubing is used for the roof and columns. Thirty-seven of the containers will be used to transport the exhibition from city to city, while the rest will be rented on arrival. Inside, the 17-metre-high triangular gable ceiling and the central wooden walk-way combine to create a cathedral effect. Next stop for Ashes and Snow is Los Angeles, followed by the Vatican City and Asia, where it will be shown in Beijing and Shanghai next year. 'I have plans and ideas to work [on this] for another 500 years,' Colbert says. 'It is important to share it and I am always secondary to the work itself. If you have a chance to live that dream, it is an enormous responsibility. But to compress my experiences into an anecdote is mission impossible and would dishonour my animal orchestra. These are not images to tell people to do something or not. They are not didactic. I would hope people are inspired by them.' Ashes and Snow is showing in New York until June 6. For more information, visit www.ashesandsnow.org .
