By Kate Bubacz
BuzzFeed News
Edward Burtynsky, a legendary landscape photographer, has spent the past three decades looking at how resources are used and the impact of humans on the environment around the globe. He collaborated with Nicholas de Pencier and Jennifer Baichwal on his newest project, Anthropocene, which combines scientific research with film, virtual reality, augmented reality, and photographs, and is also available as a book.
The photographs from the project are both haunting and eye-opening, offering a unique perspective on the collective result of decisions around the globe. "I have come to think of my preoccupation with the Anthrocepene — the indelible marks left by humankind on the geological face of our planet — as a conceptual extension of my first and most fundamental interests as a photographer" he says in the book's introduction.
Read the interview here.
Read MoreOn the occasion of the opening of the new exhibition Natural Order at Metivier Gallery in Toronto, Edward Burtynsky and Paul Roth presented a gallery talk on the new body of work and how it came to be.
Read MoreBy Jessica Padykula
TRNTO
Much like the rest of us, photographer Edward Burtynsky found himself under lockdown as the Coronavirus pandemic took hold. And he used that time to turn his camera lens toward the world around him; specifically, Grey County, Ontario.
The photos taken during that time, shot using a new camera that captures remarkable detail and density, have come together in a new exhibition titled Natural Order that will make its debut at Nicholas Metivier Gallery this month.
This is not the first time Burtynsky has turned his lens on Grey County, having photographed the area in the early 1980s. His return to this subject almost 40 years later recalls Burtynsky’s earliest works as a photographer.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Angelica Haggert
Canadian Geographic
Instead of his usual busy schedule of speaking engagements and content creation, this spring, photographer and RCGS Fellow Edward Burtynsky found himself locked down in Grey County, Ont., due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Turning the lockdown into an opportunity, Burtynsky headed out into the surrounding forests, close to lakes and rivers, with a brand new camera in hand, to focus on nature.
The result is a new series titled Natural Order, on display this September at the Metivier Gallery in Toronto. The exhibition recalls Burtynsky's earliest works as a photographer. He spoke with Canadian Geographic about his pandemic photography.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Ayesha Habib
NUVO Magazine
Famed for his sweeping, visually-striking images of industrial landscapes–including award winning climate documentary Anthropocene: The Human Epoch—Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky’s latest body of work is a study of his own backyard. Natural Order, exhibited by the Nicholas Metivier Gallery in Toronto, will be on view in the gallery and online from September 3 until September 26.
Featuring photographs taken while in isolation during the early days of the pandemic in Grey County, Ontario, Natural Order presents immensely detailed scenes of a thawing Canadian forest. The sharp contrasts of colour and texture lend the photographs an abstract painterly quality, tricking the eye and inviting the viewer to gaze deeper into their rich depths. “I find myself gazing into an infinity of apparent chaos, but through that selective contemplation, an order emerges—an enduring order that remains intact regardless of our own human fate,” says the photographer in a statement. Burtynsky first photographed the same area 40 years ago, and his return during the pandemic marks a full circle of the photographer’s career.
Read the full article here.
Read More‘74PODCAST
“To me, as an artist, engagement with art is the first step to communication.” – Edward Burtynsky
In this episode, Founder and Director of the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery Bryce Wolkowitz, and Environmental Photographer Edward Burtynsky discuss his early inspirations, his first darkroom experience, the composition within the frame, current state of the art institutions, as well as his latest project "Natural Order."
Listen to the episode on:
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Apple Podcasts
Read MoreRBC Disruptors
The COVID-19 crisis has redefined the way we experience the world around us, but long before that, advances in augmented and virtual reality were beginning to allow audiences to view the world through a new lens. In this episode of RBC Disruptors, John Stackhouse speaks to iconic Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky and his business partner and gaming expert, Vikas Gupta about how we can use technology to enhance the human experience in a post-COVID society.
Read the full post and listen to the podcast here.
Read MoreA Photo London Academy Production
Photo London is delighted to launch our inaugural e-magazine with a feature on Canadian fine art photographer Edward Burtynsky. Renowned for his monumental aerial photographs documenting the “indelible human signature” on our planet, Burtynsky was also Photo London’s Master of Photography in 2018, during which he presented a special exhibition of new and rarely seen works exploring diverse subjects such as urbanisation, industrialisation and extraction, as well as a newly developed Augmented Reality (AR) experience. For this first issue of our e-magazine, Burtynsky has shared his personal, intimate reflections on the current global crisis; a crisis that has certainly left its mark on the history of mankind, ironically not dissimilar to the man-made effects of urbanisation and deforestation on nature that are chronicled in Burtynsky’s oeuvre.
Read Issue 01 here.
Read MoreBy Sarah Leen
National Geographic
If you’re doing your duty and staying home—but getting tired of binge-watching, baking, and seeing your friends on a screen—there’s a clever way to do some armchair traveling, meet cool animals, and discover stories that might touch your heart.
I’m talking about what my mother called “picture books.”
Every photographer I know wants their images published in a book. It gives their work the validation and permanence they just can’t get from a screen. You can’t fall in love with a website the way you can with a book. Here are some of my favorite books that you can order from an online bookseller.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreRight now the message of Earth Day, on its 50th anniversary, seems more urgent than ever. There’s no doubt that the ravenous human appetite to conquer nature has compelled us to encroach on natural habitats and biodiversity in an ever-expanding way, and that this has led us to where we are today — isolated at home with a new pathogen determined to wreak global havoc. It seems the paradigm has shifted: where humans once had our collective boot on nature’s neck, we now find ourselves with nature’s boot firmly pressed against ours.
Gerhard Richter once said that “art is the highest form of hope” and my hope is that during this time in isolation I am able to create a suite of images, going back to my roots and looking at nature, with proceeds going directly to support the art sector in Canada.
The arts have taken an oversized hit during these times and will continue to suffer enormously because of this crisis. And yet, it is the artists, musicians, filmmakers and performers to whom we are all turning for catharsis, relaxation, distraction, entertainment and, perhaps most importantly, hope. Artists now need our support as much as we need theirs.
I do not know what the next few months will bring, but in this time of isolation and contemplation, I can be assured of one very important thing: the future of life on this planet rests in our hands. There may one day soon be a vaccine for this virus, but there is no vaccine for climate change.
Until such a time as life can return to something we are a little more familiar with, please stay safe and be well.
– Ed
Read MoreBy Edward Burtynsky
The Globe & Mail
It feels a little surreal to be commemorating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in the middle of this unprecedented global crisis. Admittedly, I had envisioned this day much differently, yet with COVID-19 forcing us all into isolation, the message of Earth Day seems more urgent than ever.
My 40-year career as an artist has taken me on a journey around our planet in search of the largest examples of human systems expressed upon the land and sea. I have been to many places that very few of us have any reason to go – the places where we wrest out the things we need from nature to propel our human destiny. My first trip to China in 2002 took me to Wuhan en route to photograph along the Yangtze River, where entire cities and landscapes were being commandeered and flattened to make way for the building of the Three Gorges Dam. So, when the pictures first emerged of the coronavirus lockdown in Wuhan months ago, never did I imagine seeing cities being shut down in this new and devastating way – or that we would soon experience this contagion all over the world.
There’s no doubt that the ravenous human appetite to conquer nature has compelled us to encroach on natural habitats and biodiversity in an ever-expanding way, and that this has led us to where we are today – isolated at home, with a new pathogen determined to wreak global havoc. It seems the paradigm has shifted: Where humans once had our collective boot on nature’s neck, we now find ourselves with nature’s boot firmly pressed against ours.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Shinan Govani
Toronto Star
Peering at it all through the Lewis Carroll-like looking-glass of Instagram, shortly after catching up on “Top Chef,” I stumbled upon the feed of one of Toronto’s best-travelled people, Edward Burtynsky. Interesting! A J.M.W. Turner for our time (as he has been called), the marquee photographer — known for his sweeping industrial landscapes which rest in collections ranging everywhere from the Tate to the Guggenheim, and which have earned Burtynsky enough of a following to warrant an extensive profile in The New Yorker a few years back — he is grounded, these days, like most of us. But has been making the best of it. Actually making, I should say.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Edward Burtynsky
National Geographic Magazine
Few people see where the resources that make their life possible come from. Most of us see skyscrapers but don’t see the silica mines that created the glass… We see farmland but not the forests that used to grow there—or the potash mines that provide the fertilizer that nourishes the crops.
Read MoreBy Shiralee Hudson Hill
Journal of Museum Education
ABSTRACT
Art has the power to activate learning and emotion in unique ways—this is true of humans generally, and museum visitors specifically. Yet art galleries are often overlooked in the museum field as forums for dialogue and sites of learning about climate change. This article investigates the significance of artist-led projects and art museum exhibitions in engaging visitors with issues of climate change and greater planetary change through the lens of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Anthropocene exhibition featuring the work of Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier and the related Anthropocene Project by the same trio of artists.
Read the full article here.
Read Morela Repubblica
The exhibition at the Mast was also visited by 15 thousand students
BOLOGNA - It was supposed to remain open for 4 months, it closed on January 5 after eight months of extraordinary turnout. Anthropocene, the exhibition of photographs on the changing environment hosted by the Mast of Bologna, since May 16 has been visited by 155 thousand people, impressed by the project of the international group of scientists Anthropocene Working Group which has documented the changes that man has imprinted on earth and the effects of human activities on natural processes through the combination of art, cinema, augmented reality and scientific research.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreArt-inspired program uses high tech to raise awareness of the planet's environmental stress points and encourage sustainable actions in the face of a plastics crisis
OTTAWA, Nov. 13, 2019 /CNW/ - Many students are unaware that common, everyday activities place a demand on the natural world: from buying and consuming food, to throwing out plastic waste in the trash, to purchasing fast fashion clothing containing hidden plastics, and more. As concerns mount about the impacts of a growing human population, coupled with the increasing amount of land set aside for dumping sites, students need to learn now more than ever how their lifestyle choices have the ability to change the world they live in. To support this environmental learning, The Anthropocene Project (TAP), and Canadian Geographic Education (Can Geo Education), have partnered to create a travelling, classroom-focused educational initiative called the Anthropocene Education Program (AEP). The Program will explore the complex issues of plastic consumption, waste and pollution, land use management, species extinction and climate change.
Read the full press release here.
Read MoreAnthropocene, a radical multisensory media exhibit, runs through January 5 at MAST Foundation.
By Gabriella Golenda
Metropolis Magazine
In the exhibition Anthropocene, there are aerial photos of a snow-dusted open-pit coal mine in Wyoming, a sawmill cutting its way through deteriorating lowland rainforests of Nigeria, and heliostat mirrors in a sublime formation at a solar plant in Spain. Sinister yet strangely beautiful, these obscure scenes lend us a view that we might not otherwise have: a vantage point to start to understand how profoundly the planet has been altered by humans.
As the story goes, Anthropocene, which opened May 16 in Bologna, Italy, is the result of a collaboration that began in 2014 with three Canadian artists: photographer Edward Burtynsky, and filmmakers Jennifer Biachwal and Nicolas de Penciler, and was first shown at the National Gallery of Canada. The trio spent the years leading up to the exhibit trying to answer a prompt now written in the introduction of the exhibition catalogue: “…how to give compelling aesthetic form to the evidence that has aggregated in the geological record through persistent and globally interconnected human activity.” This work closely follows the research of an international group of scientists, the Anthropocene Working Group, who are investigating the effect of human incursions, that, in their own words, are so immense in their scope that they will “endure geological time.”
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Brooke Shuman
Huffington Post
“Anthropocene: The Human Epoch,” a documentary by filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and photographer Edward Burtynsky, is a nature story gone awry, a dazzling and at times nauseating document of the far-reaching, and possibly catastrophic, impact that humans have had on the planet.
The film gets its title from the geological term “Anthropocene,” which was first coined in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen and ecologist Eugene Stoermer. In 2016, a group of geologists called the Anthropocene Working Group proposed that our planet has recently been so drastically altered by human activity that we are now living in a distinct geological era. (That’s why it’s called the Anthro-pocene, because humans made it.) Humans had been getting by in the Holocene epoch for 11,000 years since the last glacial age, but the Anthropocene Working Group claims that through farming, industrialization, massive excavation of minerals and the dumping of ton after ton of trash, we’ve created a new geological era.
Read the full article here.
Read MorePopcorn Talk
Join Frank Moran as he interviews filmmakers: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, and Edward Burtynsky.
“Anthropocene” is defined as the current geological epoch in which humans are the primary cause of permanent planetary change. The upcoming documentary ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch is unflinching in its depiction of the destruction of the natural world, using extraordinary imagery from celebrated photographer Edward Burtynsky, who directed the film with Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier.
Watch the interview here.
Read MoreBy Laura Leavitt
Hyperallergic
Featuring stunning landscape photography, the documentary Anthropocene surveys a new era of human-driven geology.
The cult film Koyaanisqatsi, named after the Hopi idea of “life lived out of balance,” contains no dialogue, but rather scenes all over the world — of cities, nature, the tiniest industrially produced products, and the vastness of canyons. It’s experienced more as a guided meditation than a linear story. I thought of it when watching the new documentary Anthropocene: The Human Epoch. It follows the research of the Anthropocene Working Group, whose members believe that the Holocene geological epoch concluded around the middle of the 20th century. In its place is the Anthropocene, characterized by the way that humans shape Earth’s landscapes.
Read the full article here.
Read More