Photo Essay

Manufactured Landscapes

December 3, 2012

For over 25 years, Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky has documented how our landscape is being transformed by industry. Both beautiful and horrifying, his large-format images bring up unsettling questions about production, consumption, progress and sustainable living.

Contributors

The following photographs, selected from his series “Quarries,” “China,” and “Ships,” provide a global perspective on the cycle of extraction, production and recycling. They provide a visual journey through the quarries of Vermont; China’s manufacturing conglomerate; the construction of the Three Gorges Dam and destruction of the nearby cities and towns that displaced over 1.2 million people; and ultimately, to the manual dismantling of oil tanks in Bangladesh.

They open a troubling window onto our modern existence and its consequences.

QUARRIES

Mas issue production manufactured landscapes 01

Rock of Ages #15, Active Section, E.L. Smith Quarry, Barre, Vermont, 1991. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Iberia Quarries #2, Marmorose EFA Co., Bencatel, Portugal, 2006. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Rock of Ages #39, Active Section, E.L. Smith Quarry, Barre, Vermont, 1991. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Rock of Ages #4, Abandoned Section, Adam-Pirie Quarry, Barre, Vermont, 1991. © Edward Burtynsky.

CHINA | MANUFACTURING

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Manufacturing #6A, Hongqingting Shoe Factory, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, 2004. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Manufacturing #6B, Hongqingting Shoe Factory, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, 2004. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Manufacturing #10A, Cankun Factory, Xiamen City, 2005 (detail of original diptych). © Edward Burtynsky.

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Manufacturing #10B, Cankun Factory, Xiamen City, 2005 (detail of original diptych). © Edward Burtynsky.

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Manufacturing #11, Youngor Textiles, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, 2005. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Manufacturing #17, Deda Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin Province, 2005. © Edward Burtynsky.

CHINA | THREE GORGES DAM

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Dam #6, Three Gorges Dam Project, Yangtze River, 2005. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Feng Jie #3, Three Gorges Dam Project, Yangtze River, 2002. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Feng Jie #4, Three Gorges Dam Project, Yangtze River, 2002. © Edward Burtynsky.

CHINA | RECYCLING

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China Recycling #24, Cankun Aluminum, Xiamen City, Fujian Province, 2005. © Edward Burtynsky.

SHIPS | SHIPBREAKING

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Shipbreaking #4, Chittagong, Bangladesh 2000. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Shipbreaking #5, Chittagong, Bangladesh 2000. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Shipbreaking #8, Chittagong, Bangladesh 2000. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Shipbreaking #11, Chittagong, Bangladesh 2000. © Edward Burtynsky.

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Shipbreaking #52, Chittagong, Bangladesh 2000. © Edward Burtynsky.

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