500 millon is a documentary project by Argentinian photographer Leonardo Ponis. In less than a century, man has radically modified the landscape of the Sierra Chica de Zonda* and their surroundings. An environment that appeared to the human experience as eternal and immutable, only altered by the slow but persistent erosion, has been transformed into an impermanent, fleeting and fragile scene. This project seeks to explore these spaces surrounding the Sierra that gradually and often chaotically are rebuilt and redefined by human intervention, setting a new landscape and inevitably leaving behind another one, which remained wild and untouched for 500 million years.
*The Sierra Chica de Zonda is located relatively in south central province of San Juan, Argentina. With is paleozoic origin, belongs to the western foothills of the Andes.
Text and images © Leonardo Ponis
