We had the privilege of visiting the Extraction/Abstraction exhibition with the Canadian photographer, who guided us through his spectacular and monumental images – flashes of beauty that capture the effects of human actions on our Planet.
A wide-ranging retrospective curated by Marc Mayer and dedicated to the 40-year career of Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky. His work focuses on the environmental impact of the industrial system on our planet, and through a profound historical understanding of image creation and an impressive mastery of the photographic medium, Burtynsky invites his viewers to look at places that exist beyond our common experience – places that satisfy the desires and needs of the present, but at the same time determine the future of our habitat.
I will never forget the feeling of having travelled back in time and entering a landscape that only Charles Dickens could have fathomed
Your images are so powerful, a veritable burst of absolute beauty. Their duality is quite apparent, too. Where did you start your research, and what is your goal?
I tend to consider the work more compelling vs beautiful and try to touch on universal themes. From the very beginning of my career, I have always sought the largest scale instances of human industry around the world – the biggest mines, the biggest factories, quarries, etc. With all of the subjects and themes I’ve followed, looking for this scale has helped start me in the research process. From there the research can take months, sometimes years to find the places around the world where those examples exist, and figure out what might be visually compelling and how I can tell that story with my camera. My goal has always been to be revelatory, not accusatory in showing people these places that most would never have the opportunity to visit, but are essential to maintaining our modern everyday lives.
Your photographs memorialize vividly the effect of human action, though humans are rarely seen, or are too small to be appreciated. An absence that is immanence. What idea lies behind this choice?
I have rarely been a portrait photographer. When people appear in my photographs it is to assist in representing the scale of what I’m showing – an inversion almost of Turner’s sublime, where Nature was once the largest force. Now humans are dwarfed by the industries we have created, and the impact of those are now a larger force or a usurper of Nature herself. My own affinity for the natural world began when I was a young boy, so the focus in my photography is her and these industrial / human incursions vs the humans themselves. I find this perspective makes us stop and think about what we are actually seeing. And more importantly, what we are actually doing. I see these works as inflection points for deeper conversations about our collective impact on the natural world.
Your “large-scale industrial raids” allowed you to take on a journey through the inexorable, slow decline of our planet that is both extraordinary and dramatic. What impressed you the most? Is there time to reverse course?
One of the places that will forever have an impact on me is the shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh. I will never forget the feeling of having travelled back in time and entering a landscape that only Charles Dickens could have fathomed – it was harsh, dangerous, hot, and impossibly bleak and difficult to reconcile that that place was a result of human industry. I was equally taken aback by the ancient forests of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. A place equally difficult to imagine as part of our world; a hauntingly beautiful and completely natural topography and so lushly biodiverse. It’s places like this that have yet to be marred by human progress that fuel my hope that we can course correct because there is still so much left to protect.
We were fascinated by your diptych Salt Encrustations #2 & #3, Lake Magadi, Kenya, 2017, so much so that we picked it for the cover of our June issue. What does the water element represent for you, and what does the colour blue, so preciously highlighted in the environment and in details of natural and artificial objects you photographed?
Water has been a central element in much of my work, representing both life and destruction, beauty and devastation. In my diptych Salt Encrustations #2 & #3, Lake Magadi, Kenya, 2017, water certainly plays to this duality: a life-giving force and as a harbinger of environmental transformation. Lake Magadi’s unique landscape, with its vivid salt encrustations, tells a story of geological and ecological change, shaped by the presence and evaporation of this essential element. The colour blue, which I cannot say that I consciously lean into, but is certainly highlighted in much of my work, can definitely be seen as more than just a visual element; it symbolises the delicate balance between natural beauty and the consequences of human activity. Blue is the colour our eyes pick up when looking at vast oceans and clear skies, evoking a sense of tranquillity, purity, vitality. Yet, in the context of my work, it also serves as a poignant reminder of the fragile state of our water bodies. The hues of blue found in both natural and artificial objects underscore the interconnectedness of human industry and the environment. They remind us that our actions reverberate through the natural world, often in ways that are as strikingly beautiful as they are concerning. Through these images, I hope to provoke a deeper understanding and reflection on our relationship with water. It is a vital resource that sustains life, yet it is also one we have profoundly impacted through our industrial endeavours.
In your art, what is ugly and dangerous to nature almost looks charming, thus generating a sort of alienating amazement in us. Don’t you fear that an ‘altered’ research for truth in images, even if only from an aesthetic point of view, might diminish the scope of environmental issues for the sheer predominance of the solemnity of vision?
I have always shied away from the term “disaster aesthetics” because so much of what I photograph is not “disaster” per se, but “business as usual”. And I also wouldn’t consider my photographs an “altered” research for truth… these landscapes are photographed exactly as they would be seen by the naked eye and while of course I am also always in search of something that is visually aesthetic, even beautiful, I actually find it is more helpful in raising awareness and resonating with audiences. It is the aesthetic quality that draws people into the images, that makes them stop and take time with each photograph, and in those moments of observation the realisation of what they are seeing dawns and from there you get a deeper understanding of what is happening to the planet.
When you look again at high-definition prints of your photographs, even a long time after, have you ever felt newly inspired or have you ever seen the subjects you previously studied and photographed under a new light, maybe finding new meanings that at first you hadn’t thought of?
I’m not sure if I have found new meaning in my images per se, after returning to them over a long period of time, but there are definitely instances – even in the initial weeks after a shoot where I am reviewing footage and looking at test prints – when I notice details and become awestruck by things I did not necessarily comprehend fully or pick up on while photographing things in the moment, especially from an aerial vantage point. It’s one of the things I love about large format photography, and my desire to have these works seen at the scale they are intended to be shown – in an exhibition setting like BURTYNSKY: Extraction/Abstraction at M9. An example of such a “surprise” moment is actually in this show. In Salt Ponds #3, Near Tikat Banguel, Senegal, 2019 the dark grey, feather-like patterns surrounding the salt ponds in this image are actually thousands upon thousands of footprints left by the artisanal harvesters, but that’s a detail you might only observe when standing in front of the real, large-scale photograph.
