The Current
with Matt Galloway
Edward Burtynsky is world famous for his monumental photographs that reveal in overwhelming detail the impact that human beings have had on planet earth. He has travelled all over the world documenting mines, quarries, recycling yards, tailings pods, refineries and factories — places that are essential to the modern world but few of us get to see. We talk about how his working class upbringing in St. Catharines, Ontario, working at General Motors, and in gold mines of northern Ontario shapes his art and how he wants Canadians to weigh the cost of industrial development at a time when major projects are under consideration.
Listen to the full segment here.
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The burning of 10,000 elephant tusks piled into an enormous funeral pyres in Kenya's National Park in Nairobi is both a devastating and beautiful image to look at — a reaction that photographer Edward Burtynsky intended.
His photographs are part of a multimedia project called Anthropocene that merges film, photography and virtual reality installations to illustrate the imprint humans are collectively leaving on the planet.
"We want to communicate out there with people. We want them to look at these things, to try to ask questions about these landscapes," he told The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti.
"If you represent them in … an unsightly light or whatever, they don't resonate. They don't make us wonder about this place."
Read the full article and listen to the interview here.
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