How beauty frames damage in Burtynsky's photographs of industrial landscapes

Burtynsky's photographs of industrial landscapes are the subject of Manufactured Landscapes, a 2006 Canadian documentary film. It was the first of three documentary collaborations between Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky, followed by Watermark in 2013 and Anthropocene: The Human Epoch in 2018.

2 articles, 1 book · about 6 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   

   Burtynsky's photographs of industrial landscapes · Wikipedia · 4 min read

   Ed Burtynsky's photographs and videos document his trip through landscapes altered by large-scale human activity, captured with Super 16 mm film. The footage includes a China factory that produces most of the world's supply of clothes irons, is one kilometer in length and employs 23,000 workers. In the film about Burtynsky's photographs of industrial landscapes, Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips praised the opening shot but said "the rest of director Baichwal's picture feels constrained and rather dutiful, no matter how passionate these people are about what they're observing."

2. Read
   

   Edward Burtynsky - Manufactured Landscapes - On Landscape · onlandscape.co.uk · 2 min read

   Kenneth Baker's final essay examines the intrinsic stress in Edward Burtynsky's photographs of industrial landscapes: their formal, beautiful compositions often depict industrial installations and environmental damage. Burtynsky offers very little narrative, letting viewers draw their own conclusions.

3. Book
   

   Manufactured Landscapes · Bookshop.org

   Manufactured Landscapes is a book by Edward Burtynsky, a collection of his photographs of industrial landscapes altered by large-scale human activity.

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