Edward Burtynsky

Published with International Center of Photography, New York.

A retrospective of Edward Burtynsky's (born 1955) photography from the past 40 years, The Great Acceleration reveals the depth of the photographer's investigation into the human alteration of natural landscapes around the world, showing their present fragility and enduring beauty in equal measure. "The Great Acceleration" is an established term used to describe the rapid rise of human impact on our planet, among them population growth, water usage, transportation, greenhouse gas emissions, resource extraction and food production, each of which Burtynsky has photographed the signs of in great detail throughout his career. From open pit mines across North America to oil derricks in Azerbaijan, from rice terraces in China to oil bunkering in Nigeria, Burtynsky has traveled the world and back again as part of his restless and seemingly inexhaustible drive to discover the ways, both old and new, that organized human activity has transformed the earth. Including many of Burtynsky's landmark images, and which have never been published, the book is an urgent call to action, inviting us to appreciate the sublimity that remains in nature while deepening our understanding of the challenges and responsibilities confronting us today.

According to curator Marc Mayer, photographer Edward Burtynsky has three main facets to his identity: “The Technician,” “The Journalist,” “The Artist.” Published on the occasion of Burtynsky’s largest and most comprehensive exhibition to date at the Saatchi Gallery in London, Extraction/Abstraction looks deeply at the key subjects and signature images spanning his 45-year career. The catalog and related exhibition present a dichotomy of Burtynsky’s image-making imperative: the lucid and informed documentation of large-scale extractive processes, and how, through his practice, Burtynsky transforms the landscape of industry into complete abstraction. Other essential themes in his oeuvre, such as agriculture, manufacturing, infrastructure and waste, also find their rightful place here.
With more than 130 color plates, the book also has a special section, the “Process Archive,” featuring previously unpublished, behind-the-scenes photographs showing Burtynsky at work on the ground and in the air throughout his career. The archive provides a glimpse into the artist’s progression through the evolution of the medium itself, from mid-20th-century large-format analog cameras through to 21st-century high-resolution digital technologies, including explorations into photogrammetry and augmented reality.
Edward Burtynsky was born in St. Catharines, Canada, in 1955. His remarkable depictions of global industrial landscapes are held in the collections of over 60 major museums including the National Gallery of Canada; the Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum in New York; Tate Modern, London; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

In Edward Burtynsky’s recent photographs, produced across the African continent, the patterns and scars of human-altered landscapes initially appear to form an abstract painterly language; they reference the sublime and often surreal qualities of human mark-making. While chronicling the major themes of terraforming and extraction, urbanization and deforestation, African Studies conveys the unsettling reality of sweeping resource depletion on both a human and industrial scale.
From natural landscapes to artisanal mining and mechanized extraction, several distinct chapters culminate with China in Africa: a series depicting the economic inroads being made by China, including the interiors of gigantic newly built manufacturing plants. This project brings together the work of seven years, the latest installment in Burtynsky’s ongoing oeuvre.
Edward Burtynsky (born 1955) is regarded as one of the world’s most accomplished contemporary photographers. Since the early 1980s Burtynsky’s imagery has explored the collective impact we as a species are exerting on the environment. Renowned for his sustained investigation of the “indelible human signature” caused by industrial incursions into the landscape, previous projects have explored mining, quarrying, manufacturing, agriculture, shipping, the production of oil, and the development of China. In addition, he has made three award-winning films with director Jennifer Baichwal, Manufactured Landscapes (2006), Watermark (2013) and Anthropocene: The Human Epoch (2018). Burtynsky’s books with Steidl are China (2005), Quarries (2007), Oil (2009), Water (2013), Salt Pans (2016), Anthropocene (2018) and Natural Order (2020).

In spring 2020 Edward Burtynsky (born 1955) found himself, like most of us, in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time Burtynsky was in his beloved Grey County, Ontario—an area of wild beauty where he made his earliest photos—and he used his isolation there to reflect and create: with a new camera in hand he began recording nature in images which, in his words, are an “affirmation of the complexity, wonder and resilience of the natural order in all things.”

Over the past 40 years Burtynsky has compellingly explored the shocking variety and scale of industrialized landscapes, from oil refineries to quarries, from aquaculture to salt extraction. Yet in Natural Order he captures a moment when humankind has been temporarily stopped in its tracks, businesses suspended and economies disrupted—a moment for nature to breathe. These photos of trees and other flora show nature on the dynamic cusp between winter and spring, a time of melting snow, sprouting shoots and the promise of bounty: for Burtynsky, “an enduring order that remains intact regardless of our own human fate.”

Anthropocene is a multidisciplinary body of work by Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, which includes a photobook, a major traveling museum exhibition, a feature documentary film and an interactive educational website. The project's starting point is the research of the Anthropocene Working Group, an international body of scientists who are advocating to officially change the name of our present geological epoch, Holocene, to Anthropocene, in recognition of profound human changes to the earth's system. The AWG's research categories, such as Anthroturbation, Species Extinction, Technofossils, Boundary Limits and Terraforming, are represented and explored in various mediums as evidence of our species' impact on a geological scale.

The works of Toronto-based photographer Edward Burtynsky (born 1955) are included in the collections of over 60 major museums, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His previous publications with Steidl are China (2005), Quarries (2007), Oil (2009), Water (2013) and Salt Pans (2016).

Jennifer Baichwal (born 1965) has directed and produced documentaries for over 20 years. Manufactured Landscapes, about the work of Edward Burtynsky in China, was released in 12 countries. Nicholas de Pencier is a documentary director, producer and director of photography. Selected credits include Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles, The Holier It Gets and Act of God. He was also director, producer and director of photography of Watermark and Black Code.