Burtynsky exhibition at Saatchi Gallery ‘pulls curtain away’ on humanity’s impact on Earth

euronews (in English)

Striking photos, murals and video footage from Canadian photographic artist Edward Burtynsky urge a rethink of our legacy on Earth, and the pursuit of a more sustainable future.

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:07 Hello from London's Saatchi Gallery, where a new exhibition is exploring the impact of us humans on our planet.

00:15 The striking images on show here from Canadian photographic artist Edward Butinsky

00:21 prompts the pressing question, how can we live more sustainably in the future?

00:27 [Music]

00:32 Butinsky's Extraction Abstraction is a retrospective featuring more than 90 large format photographs

00:40 along with murals and augmented reality, documenting humanity's footprint in the natural world

00:47 and the environmental consequences of industry over more than four decades.

00:53 We all have something to do with these images because these are the places that bring us our daily stuff.

00:58 The salt mines that bring us salt and the copper mine that brings us the windings for our motors and engines

01:04 and the communications for our phones.

01:07 This isn't a show about indictment, it's a show pulling the curtain away and showing us the other world

01:14 that has to be there for this world to exist, our urban world.

01:18 [Music]

01:22 This exhibit, called In the Wake of Progress, combines photos and film footage from Butinsky's long career.

01:29 It urges a rethink of humanity's legacy on Earth and the pursuit of a more sustainable future.

01:36 [Music]

01:38 We need to change our arrogance. We need to stop saying that us and nature, we are nature.

01:45 And the more we realise that we're part of nature, the more we realise that we are directly harming ourselves

01:51 when we harm the environment.

01:53 [Music]

01:56 I think what Edward Butinsky's work does is it holds up a mirror to all these processes

02:01 that we're not used to seeing and that we don't always feel comfortable seeing.

02:05 You don't want to know where the battery in your phone comes from or the plastic that you use, where it ends up.

02:10 And yet this exhibition shows you that and encourages you to think about how to live more sustainably.

02:16 [Music]

02:18 Other works here explore how marks left by industry can be strangely beautiful.

02:24 This image from Canada shows liquid waste from nickel mining.

02:29 What you're seeing as orange is really rivers of iron oxide.

02:33 They don't reclaim the iron, so it is like rivers of rust, and that's where you get this incredibly rich orange colour.

02:40 It has this kind of overall, this beautiful gesture that runs through it that almost has an emotional power to it.

02:47 Butinsky Extraction Abstraction runs at London's Saatchi Gallery until 6th May.

02:54 [Music]

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