Photo Essay

Manufactured Landscapes

About

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

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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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