Renowned photographer Ed Burtynsky is celebrated for his work exploring vast landscapes that have undergone irreversible change due to industrialisation and globalisation.
Using China as his focus, images included here include a factory employing 23,000 workers, the Three Gorges Dam, the rapid expansion of Shanghai, and towers of human waste and debris.
Unpacking the transformative, overwhelming environmental fallout of industrialisation in places that have become indispensable to ‘the West,’ Burtynsky’s beautiful images juxtapose sharply with the heart-breaking reality they represent, inviting a nuanced debate around industrial demands and the impact these are having on our planet.
One of three extraordinary collaborations between environmentally conscious artists Jennifer Baichawl and Ed Burtynsky (succeeded by Watermark and Anthropocene: The Human Epoch), this thought-provoking documentary avoids didactic messaging, instead offering a stark visual platform to raise awareness of the reality of society’s contemporaneous environmental footprint, and the emerging age of the Anthropocene.
This screening will be followed by a discussion presented in partnership with the Anthropocene Research Group (Newcastle University).