David Ellingsen's Collages Confront a Century of Environmental Extraction

Key facts

• David Ellingsen's series 'Days of Plenty: An Archive of Abundance' uses archival photographs from institutions, online auctions, and charity shops.
• The project is personal: Ellingsen's great-grandfather shot the last bear on Reef Point Farm in 1956 and felled the last old-growth stumps on the family land.
• The show opened on 12 June at the Cowichan Public Art Gallery in Duncan, Vancouver Island.
• It will travel to the 2026 Backlight Photo Festival in Tampere, Finland, from 01 September to 12 October 2026.
• Imagery dates mostly from mid-19th century to 1970; Ellingsen chose 1970 because scientific baselines began then, but by then the passenger pigeon was extinct and bison reduced from 35 million to 300.
• Human figures in the collages are rendered as negatives to obscure identity, critiquing the 'cult of the individual' as a precursor to the selfie.
• Works are printed in pigment ink on cotton rag, hand-cut, and finished with gold edging, referencing cabinet cards and cartes-de-visite.
• Ellingsen grew up on Cortes Island alongside Rex Weyler, a photographer and early Greenpeace collaborator; his family started logging there in 1887.
• Ellingsen won the BJP Award at Format Festival's 2026 FORMAT Portfolio Review.