By Laura Decarufel
The Kit
As a culture, we’ve long relied on artists to both interpret our existing reality and to light a path to the future. Edward Burtynsky, 67, has been acting as such a prophet for 40 years. In his large-scale photographs of shipyards in China, logged forests in B.C. and African landfills dotted with Dollarama bags, he captures both the majestic beauty of our world—and the scale of the problems facing it.
Burtynsky’s latest project, “In the Wake of Progress,” is an immersive installation and a cri de coeur about the threat of climate change. (It debuts in June as part of Toronto’s Luminato arts festival and will then travel internationally.) The installation is two-pronged: a public art piece in Yonge-Dundas Square and a considerably more private experience, where viewers sit in a darkened room surrounded by three massive screens showing still photos and video—taken by Burtynsky across his career, around the world—all set to music that is alternately menacing and hopeful, courtesy of birdsong from ancient B.C. forests. As a career retrospective, it’s impressive. As a work of art, it’s beautiful, heartbreaking, galvanizing.
Read the full interview here.
Read MoreHosted by Ben Luke and Tom Seymour
This Week in Art |The Art Newspaper
This week, our associate editor Tom Seymour talks to the photographer Edward Burtynsky as he is recognised for his Outstanding Contribution to his medium in the Sony World Photography Awards. He discusses the Russian invasion and his Ukrainian heritage.
Listen here.
Read MoreCBC Radio
As It Happens
When Edward Burtynsky was honoured for his contribution to photography on Tuesday, he decided to share the spotlight with Ukrainians who are documenting the war with their cameras.
Burtynsky, a Canadian photographer of Ukrainian descent, won the prize for outstanding contribution to photography at the Sony World Photography Awards in London.
Read the Q&A and listen to the episode here.
Read MoreBy Andrew Dickson
The Guardian
From toxic lakes to stripped mountains, he is the great chronicler of eco atrocities – and his roots lie in Ukraine. The photographer talks about Putin, trauma and what will survive
Read the article here.
Read MorePhotography is about light conquering darkness. And as we speak, Ukrainian photographers are conquering an unimaginable form of darkness. I can think of no more outstanding contribution to photography than that.
Read MoreBy Kate Taylor
The Globe and Mail
“Photography embodies truth in a way that transcends language, culture, borders, and time. In the face of fake news and Putin’s vicious disinformation campaign, Ukrainian photographers are using this moment to show the world the truth.
“Their dedication to their art, even as their towns are surrounded by invading Russian forces bringing terror to their doorsteps, is a bravery that humbles me.
“Photography is about light conquering darkness. And as we speak, Ukrainian photographers are conquering an unimaginable form of darkness. I can think of no more outstanding contribution to photography than that.”
Read the article here.
Read More
Front Row
BBC Radio 4
After being announced as the recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Photography award at the Sony World Photography Awards 2022, the Canadian photographer and artist Edward Burtynsky talks to Tom about his 40-year career as a landscape photographer.
Listen to the episode here.
Read MoreBy Edward Burtynsky
Maclean’s
Edward Burtynsky: For over 20 years my mother advocated for the people of Ukraine. She knows what it means to lose freedom and what it takes to fight to get it back.
Read the full essay here.
Read MoreBy Jeremy Nuttall
Toronto Star
One of Canada’s foremost photographic artists is raising money for humanitarian relief in Ukraine by giving a special print of a famous work to the first 30 people who show him a $10,000 receipt for a donation to the Red Cross’s humanitarian relief for the country.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreCampus Beat!
CFRC
Welcome back to another great edition of Campus Beat! On January 18th 2022, Queen’s University announced a new creative partnership with world-renowned Canadian photographer, and Queen’s Honorary Doctorate recipient (2007), Edward Burtynsky to help realize his new public art piece titled Standing Whale.
Listen to the full podcast episode here.
Read MoreQueen’s University is proud to announce a partnership with world-renowned Canadian photographer, and Queen’s Honorary Doctorate recipient (2007), Edward Burtynsky to help realize his new public art piece titled Standing Whale.
Read the full press release here.
Read MoreBy Roger Klein
On the Bay Magazine
Documenting the Human Epoch
He’s photographed rare coral reefs off the coast of Komodo Island, Indonesia. He’s documented environmental destruction from the nickel mines of Sudbury to the largest ivory burn in Africa’s history. Now Edward Burtynsky wants the people of Georgian Bay to know they live in one of the most naturally beautiful places on earth. And it’s worth protecting.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Kate Brown
Artnet
Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky is sort of like a sleuth: He produces evidence of humans’ impact on the planet. Gaining access to hard-to-reach places in our world—tar sands, nickel mines, sawmills, or shipyards—Burtynsky culls poignant imagery to show us how we have transformed the earth around us at a vast and debilitating scale. There is a cost to modern life and its massive, if usually just out of view.
At a time when the climate is finally starting to rear from the effects of industry, his work has become even more urgent. It is no great surprise then the artist, who is based in Toronto, was recently awarded this year’s Outstanding Contribution to Photography by the World Photography Organization. His work will be on view at the 2022 Sony World Photography Awards exhibition at Somerset House in London beginning April 15, 2022.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreCBC Ideas
Renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky has an origin story about the start of his illustrious career. It was his first assignment as a student at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute: to go out and photograph "evidence of man."
"This is 1976," Burtynsky explained in a recent online talk for the Ontario Heritage Trust. "And as I started thinking about that idea, I thought, 'Well, what can I do with this?'"
Read the article and listen to the episode here.
Read MoreBy Sarah Rose Sharp
Hyperallergic
Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky received high honors today, November 24, recognized for his “Outstanding Contribution to Photography” by the World Photography Organisation’s 2022 Sony World Photography Awards. Burtynsky’s work captures wide-angle views of industrial processes and waste and their interactions with natural ecosystems. Over decades, his work has examined the complex process of resource extraction, use, and disposal, revealing its impact in vivid detail. His images combine technical skill with sweeping scale and expert composition, using aesthetic wonder to twist the knife of abject environmental damage.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreThe Nicholas Metivier Gallery is pleased to announce that Salt Pan #18 by Edward Burtynsky has been acquired by The J. Paul Getty Museum as part of their permanent collection.
Read the full announcement here.
Read MoreThe Nicholas Metivier Gallery is pleased to announce that Lithium Mines #2 by Edward Burtynsky has been acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of their permanent collection. The Met's Department of Photographs houses a collection of more than 75,000 works spanning the history of photography from its invention in the 1830s to the present.
Read the full announcement here.
Read MoreBy Alex Derry
Toronto Life Insider
Edward Burtynsky is one of the world’s most accomplished contemporary photographers. His latest project, In the Wake of Progress, will make its virtual world premiere with Luminato Festival on October 16, 2021. We spoke with Burtynsky about his 40-year journey as an artist depicting global industrial landscapes, how his work is a call to action for collective action on climate change, and more.
Read the full interview here.
Read MoreBy Connie Vitello
Environment Journal
Did you know that it can take over 450 years for a single plastic water bottle to decompose? Meanwhile, one million single-use plastic water bottles are consumed every minute globally, according to latest estimates. That equates to over 500 billion bottles year. Canadians alone consume approximately 2.5 billion litres of bottled water that results in 10,000 tonnes of plastics entering the Great Lakes every year.
A new exhibit at Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto, Ontario highlights the adverse impact of single-use plastic bottle pollution through world renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky‘s thought-provoking work and a unique augmented reality (AR) experience by AVARA Media.
The exhibit, titled H20, includes works from Burtynsky’s Water series and is featured alongside the AR experience that helps guests visualize the adverse impacts of single-use plastic bottle waste, a problem with devastating consequences for human health, wildlife, and water quality.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Sophie Bernard
Blind: Photography at First Sight
Edward Burtynsky, whose work over the past thirty years has been focused on ecology, combines aesthetic and documentary approaches. The exhibition at the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier, showcasing some fifty images on the theme of water, is also an opportunity to explore the notion of commitment.
The drying Colorado River in the Southwestern United States and Owens Lake in California; cities built in the middle of the desert, such as Phoenix, Arizona; intensive shellfish farms in Sonora, Mexico; rivers polluted by the use of chemical fertilizers or the extraction of natural resources, such as phosphorus; the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; and the enormous dams built in China: these are just some of the subjects addressed in the fifty or so images on display at the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier.
Read the full article here.
Read More