07/06/2026
SWANSCOMBE II (ca 400,000 BCE)
A sample of plant matter collected from Swanscombe in Kent, UK, sitting alongside evidence of a young woman who called this place home 400,000 years ago. She left no name, only fragments of bone. Her skull is among the earliest human fossils found in Britain, belonging to an early Neanderthal population or a closely related human ancestor (Homo Heidelbergensis?).
She lived in a Britain that was not yet an island: a shifting interglacial period landscape of rivers, forests, and open plains, where elephants, rhinoceroses, bison, and deer moved across seasonal ground, connected to the Eurasian landmass. Human presence here came and went with the climate - returning during warmer periods, vanishing when ice advanced.
Hahnemühle, FineArt Pearl archival paper
60 × 60 CM
2021
'AN ULTRASTRUCTURE OF BRITAIN'
What is a nation? When was it formed? What is it made of? These questions guided Nikahetiya’s inquiry following his relocation to the UK in 2014. Over the following five years, he visited more than thirty historically significant sites, collecting small samples of natural and human-made materials - from soil samples near early human footprints in the UK (c. 800,000 years old) to corroded metal beside the world’s first iron bridge, marking the dawn of industrial revolution.
Each tiny sample was coated in gold dust and imaged using a scanning electron microscope (SEM), revealing nanoscale landscapes, magnified at 20,000x and beyond. At this scale, history appears stripped of political or cultural narrative, exposing instead the material processes that underpin both land and human presence.
This series explores perception and belonging, inviting reflection on identity, heritage, and the idea of home. Focusing on the invisible, rethinking nationhood and belonging through its physical traces across time.
All images were produced at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, with support from King’s College London. Shortlisted for the Royal Photographic Society Award 2021.
