TED Prize 2005 Geological Society of America President's Medal 2013 Roger's Best Canadian Film Award 2013 Best Feature Length Documentary 2014 Master of Photo 2018 Peace Patron Award 2018 Best Canadian Documentary 2019
Edward BurtynskyOCRCA (born February 22, 1955) is a Canadianphotographer and artist known for his large format photographs of industrial landscapes. His works depict locations from around the world that represent the increasing development of industrialization and its impacts on nature and the human existence. It is most often connected to the philosophical concept of thesublime, a trait established by the grand scale of the work he creates, though they are equally disturbing in the way they reveal the context of rapid industrialization.[2]
Burtynsky is an advocate for environmental conservationism and his work is deeply entwined in his advocacy. In TED's description of his work, it notes his "large-format color photographs explore the impact of humanity's expanding footprint and the substantial ways in which we're reshaping the surface of the planet."[5] He sits on the board ofContact, Toronto's international festival of photography.[6]
Burtynsky was born inSt. Catharines, Ontario, a blue-collar town whereGeneral Motors was the largest employer. His Father, Peter Burtynsky, was a Ukrainian immigrant who found work on the production line at the General Motors plant. When Burtynsky was 11 years old, his father purchased a darkroom and cameras from a widow whose late husband had practiced amateur photography. Burtynsky was given two rolls ofTri-X film and told to make do with that or support the habit through his own means.[7] Along with learning black and white photography, he learned black and white print.[1] This would prove to be useful in the development of his own business to support his new-found habit as he began photographing events and providing portraits at his local Ukrainian community center, charging 50 cents per photograph. With the money he made, he travelled throughout the countryside of St. Catharines photographing the "pristine landscapes" of his childhood.[8] This is where he would later attribute his interest in pursuing landscape photography.
From the mid-1970s to early 1980s, Burtynsky formally studied graphic arts and photography. He obtained a diploma in graphic design fromNiagara College in Welland, Ontario, beginning his studies in 1974.[9] After receiving his collegial diploma, he had not initially considered pursuing higher education, but quickly changed his mind when touring the Ryerson campus on a request from a former photography teacher of his.[7] He enrolled and completed the four-year undergraduate program and obtained a Bachelor's in Photographic Arts (Media Studies Program) fromRyerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, Ontario, in 1982.[9]
Burtynsky's earliest works, now donated toRyerson University's Image Center are primarily taken in locations across Ontario and Western Canada. Influenced by American photographers such as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Carleton Watkins, these works consist mostly of colored landscapes. Some of his earliest original landscape photographs such asLandscape Study #1, North Carolina, USA (1979) andLandscape Study #2, Ontario, Canada (1981) served as portfolio submissions for Ryerson and displayed traces of his early exploration into the main themes of his work: human control over nature.[10] Burtynsky briefly worked in photography departments for IBM and the Ontario Hospital Association peri-graduation and in architecture post-graduation.[7] In 1985, he founded Toronto Image Works, a studio space that doubled as a darkroom rental facility, custom photo laboratory and training center for digital and new media.[9]
Some of Burtynsky's breakout works post-graduation such asBreaking Ground: Mines, Railcuts and Homesteads (1983–85) andVermont Quarries (1991-92) show a transition toward the human impact themes that mark his later work.[9] Many of these indicate an account of the ecology of human interaction and the pillaging of landscapes which include the dialogue between the human, machine and the earth.[11]
Most of Burtynsky's exhibited photography (pre 2007) was taken with alarge format,field camera, on large 4×5-inch sheet film and developed into high-resolution, large-dimension prints of various sizes and editions ranging from 18 × 22 inches to 60 × 80 inches.[2] He often positions himself at high-vantage points over the landscape using elevated platforms, the natural topography, and more currentlydrones, helicopters andfixed-wing aircraft. Burtynsky describes the act of taking a photograph in terms of "The Contemplated Moment", evoking and in contrast to, "The Decisive Moment" ofHenri Cartier-Bresson.[12] He currently uses a high-resolution digital medium format camera.[13]
Burtynsky's photographic style is characterized by the sublime nature of the scale of his photographs. His large-format view camera depicts humanity's scarring on the landscapes he makes his subject, with "astonishing color and relentless detail", always focusing on the consequences of global consumerism.[2] Burtynsky's photography places the viewer in a state of non-intervention with the environments depicted.[2][12] While the viewer witnesses the consequences of radicalized consumerism, the viewer is left to quietly contemplate its political articulation: neither a condemnation nor a celebration of the subject matter, simply an acknowledgement of its existence, to create dialogue, not to dichotomize.[11]
Manufactured Landscapes is a collection of more than 60 large scale images, many as large as 48 by 60 inches, depicting Burtynsky's travels around the world capturing stunning transformations of nature into industrial landscapes.[2] In 2003, Burtynsky developed a series of images conveying China's contemporary transformation into industrialization which was included as part of the exhibit. Using a 4×5large format camera he presented the result of Western consumerism on the industrialization of China while depicting the effects of the environmental devastation caused by Chinese industrial ambitions in China.[14]
Burtynsky photographs sweeping views of landscapes altered by industry:mine tailings, quarries, scrap piles.[11] The grandeur of his images is often in tension with the compromised environments they depict.[15] He has made several excursions to China to photograph that country's industrial emergence, and construction of one of the world's largest engineering projects, theThree Gorges Dam.[11]
In 1985, Burtynsky established Toronto Image Works, a commercial photography lab, which has evolved into a facility that also offers darkroom rentals, equipment use and digital new-media courses. In 1986 the facility opened a gallery space which displays the work of local and international artists.[1]
Burtynsky andJennifer Baichwal, who directedManufactured Landscapes, are co-directors of the 2013 documentary film,Watermark.[20] The film is part of his five-year project,Water, focusing on the way water is used and managed.[21]
Anthropocene: The Human Epoch andThe Anthropocene Project
The Anthropocene Project is a multidisciplinary body of work from collaboratorsNicholas de Pencier, Burtynsky and Baichwal. Combining art, film, virtual reality, augmented reality, and scientific research, the project investigates human influence on the state, dynamic and future of the Earth.Anthropocene means a new era of geological time where human activity is the driving force behind environmental and geological change.
Burtynsky'sIn the Wake of Progress: Images of the Industrial Landscape has been a webcast in 2003,[26] and a touring immersive multimedia experience, blending music, photography and film, in 2021–22.[27]
Oil. Göttingen:Steidl, 2005.ISBN978-3-86521-943-5. Edited by Marcus Schubert. With essays by Michael Mitchell, William E. Rees, and Paul Roth. "Published in conjunction with exhibitions held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Oct. 3-Dec. 13, 2009 and Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography Amsterdam, Dec. 5, 2009-Feb. 28, 2010."[28]
Manufactured Landscapes: The Photography of Edward Burtynsky. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: National Gallery of Canada; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005.ISBN9780300099430. Edited by Lori Pauli. With essays byMark Haworth-Booth and Kenneth Baker, interview by Michael Torosian.
Quarries. Göttingen: Steidl, 2007.ISBN978-3-86521-456-0. With essays by Michael Mitchell, "More urgent than beauty," "Rock of Ages," "Three marble mountains," "Dying for beauty," "Buy low, sell low," and "Inverted architecture."
Pentimento. Catalogue of an exhibition held at Flowers Central, London, 2010.
Water. Göttingen: Steidl, 2013.ISBN9783869306797. Edited by Marcus Schubert. With essays byWade Davis andRussell Lord. "Catalog of an exhibition held at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, Oct. 5, 2013-Jan. 19, 2014."[29]
Essential Elements. Thames & Hudson, 2016.ISBN978-0500544617. With essay by William A. Ewing.
Anthropocene. Göttingen: Steidl, 2018.ISBN978-3958294899. With essays by Jennifer Baichwal, Nick De Pencier, Suzaan Boettger, Jan Zalasiewicz, Colin Waters, Margaret Atwood.
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