By Mike Balsom
Niagara-on-the-Lake Local
Edward Burtynsky’s In the Wake of Progress is a stunning distress signal for an Earth under threat by climate change.
As such, the 20-minute immersive film and sound experience acts as the perfect centrepiece to Art in Action: Climate, a 10-day event aiming to “illuminate the beauty and fragility of our planet,” while also reflecting on the cost of progress.
The St. Catharines native has spent four decades turning his lens toward the destruction wreaked upon the world by humans. Like his previous films—Manufactured Landscapes (2006), Watermark (2013) and Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2018)—In the Wake of Progress, presents awe-inspiring visuals to sound the alarm on the profound and long-lasting effects of an ever-expanding population.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreYourTV Niagara
A 10-day experience that illuminates the beauty and fragility of our planet is underway at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines.
Watch the full segment here.
Read MoreBy Maryam Siddiqi
The Globe and Mail
Fishing and foraging, canning and gardening in Niagara’s fertile landscape. Biking to the Welland Canal to watch the ships go through. Working on car parts at the General Motors and Ford plants. Every one of these experiences influenced photographer Edward Burtynsky while growing up in St. Catharines, Ont.
Burtynsky now lives in Toronto, and left St. Catharines in the late seventies to attend university, but his hometown has stayed with him.
“A lot of what I’ve gone on to do in my life with my work has been informed in many ways by those formative years,” he says.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreSesaya Arts Magazine
By Scott Sneddon
Photographer Edward Burtynsky’s stunning pictures don’t just show the impact of humanity’s industrial footprint on our planet. They scale it to a register that feels uncanny, mesmerizing … even sublime.
With a Burtynsky photo, you find yourself staring, seduced by composition and rhythm and detail … only to realize, maybe with a shudder, that the subject is slag or oil sands tailings, feedlots or quarries. The renowned Canadian artist famously captures natural sites that have been transformed by industry. A globetrotter, he has made his way into famous, infamous, and sometimes jealously guarded sites here in Canada and the US, as well as in distant lands like China, Bangladesh, Italy and Australia.
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Read MoreBy Virginia Lewis
Art in Action: Climate Blog
This January, when Burtynsky returns to his hometown, he and his work will take centre stage at Art In Action: Climate, showcasing a 40-year career that has earned photography exhibitions in over 80 museums around the world, a coveted spot in the International Photography Hall of Fame alongside inductees that include Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz, and a host of other honours.
“I think that kind of early exposure to both nature and industry really prepared me to venture into work that’s taken me around the world looking at how both industry and we as humans are shaping the planet.”
Read the full article here.
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