The Modern House

Edward Burtynsky has been investigating natural landscapes for over 35 years, producing sweeping views of environments transformed by industry. In the collaboration with British Journal of Photography, here, the photographer discusses his approach.

His collaborative, multidisciplinary body of work, The Anthropocene Project, is influenced by the proposed new geologic era – ‘Anthropocene’ – a concept popularised in 2000 by the late chemist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Jozef Crutzen, representing a formal acknowledgement of the “human signature” on Earth. Working alongside filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, Burtynsky travelled to 20 countries over a period of five years, photographing altercations such as the lithium mines of Chile’s Atacama desert, the psychedelic potash ores of Russia’s Ural Mountains, and the effects of oil bunkering in the Niger Delta.

Read the full article here.