By Patricia Balcom
The theme of this issue of The Lowertown Echo is the “environment writ large”. It is an appropriate title for a new exhibition at the National Gallery, Anthropocene, featuring the work of Edward Burtynsky (photographer), and Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas De Pencier (filmmakers). It consists of 31 large photographs (many as large as 152.4 cm. x 203.2 cm), 12 videos, 3 murals with film extensions and several augmented-reality installations. It is balanced, with images from all continents except Antarctica, and aims to include both positive and negative stories.
What is Anthropocene?
The Working Group on the Anthropocene (the human epoch) began working in 2009 to have a new geological epoch declared. They argued that human activity has brought about profound and permanent changes to the Earth’s surface which will leave their mark in a new geological stratum. The group dates the beginning of the period to 1950, when radioactive fallout after nuclear explosions was dispersed throughout the planet. The new stratum also contains technofossils such as plastics and concrete, as well as traces left by agriculture, mining, deforestation and urbanization, resulting in more carbon dioxide emissions, rising sea levels, and species extinction.
I will concentrate on Burtynsky’s photographs, each of which is a masterpiece of imagery, colour and composition. He often uses drones and helicopters in his work, so that some of the photographs are taken from so far away the images appear as abstract patterns, and viewers may need to read the wall notes to know what they represent. The works are beautiful, but paradoxically show the terrible ramifications of human activity on Earth. Some are hopeful, but many are not, although they are all visually stunning. As a poster commented, “The only problem with Burtynksky [sic] is that he makes pollution and environmental destruction look so beautiful that I almost want people to do more of it just so that he can take pictures of it. (Clawsoon, October 19, 2018 at 12:53 p.m. https://www.metafilter.com/177161/A-water-fight-in-Chiles-Atacama-raises-questions-over-lithium-mining)
The photographs
Visitors to the exhibition are greeted by Big Lonely Doug, a 1000-year-old Douglas fir, 66 m high and 12 m in circumference, and the only survivor of clear-cutting in an old-growth forest on Vancouver Island. His survival is due to an industry engineer who instructed loggers to “leave tree”.
There are two striking photos showing how humans’ current consumption will result in massive numbers of technofossils which will endure for millennia, Dandora Landfill #3, Plastics Recycling, Nairobi, Kenya, depicts humans, dwarfed by mountains of trash, sorting through for recyclables, which they can sell on-site. The photograph is so detailed that one can read the labels on the individual plastic bottles. Concrete is another technofossil, which, like plastic, takes thousands of years to break down. Tetrapods #1, Dongying, is a gorgeous abstract pattern of thousands of lozenge-shaped objects, but ironically the thousands of concrete tetrapods depicted will be used to preserve shorelines for oil extraction.
Intensive agriculture is another hallmark of the Anthropocene. The photo of the industrial fish farm in Cadiz, Spain shows clearly how humans have changed the geography of the place, but paradoxically it is actually sustainable, an “example of human-engineered biodiversity—healthy polyculture which results in harvest of fish, molluscs and crustaceans.” Unfortunately these sustainable farms are likely to be supplanted by more lucrative monoculture operations. Similarly, Dryland Farming #40, Monegrillo County, Spain, photographed from a helicopter at 610 m, evokes an abstract painting, and although the landscape has been altered by agriculture, the dryland farming tradition has sustained generations of farmers growing cereal crops using very little water, and could be a model for the future.
Some of the most beautiful photos in the exhibit deal with resource extraction, particularly the open-pit copper mines Morenci Mine #1 and #2 in Arizona, and Chino Mine #5 in New Mexico. The brilliant reds and golds are reminiscent of a Renaissance painting, but the psychedelic patterns are a result of heavy metals in the wastewater held in tailing ponds.
One powerful photograph representing oil extraction is Oil Bunkering #1, Niger Delta. Oil extraction here is a hazardous process, with even fewer safeguards than in Canada. The extraction activities pollute rivers, creeks and swamps, as well as the surrounding land. The image depicts some locals “bunkering” (stealing) oil from the pipelines to later refine it in small make-shift refineries, further contributing to land and water pollution. But the pattern of the oil spill in the water is beautiful, in with swirling bands of mauve, indigo, pale green, yellow and orange.
One of the starkest images on the theme of deforestation is Clearcut #1, Palm Oil Plantation, Borneo, Malaysia the right-hand side is a verdant forest but the left-hand side has been shaved bare, with paths and furrows incised into the brown earth. More optimistic is the almost full-size mural of Douglas firs in Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island. This park has preserved a stand of old-growth Douglas fir trees, some of which are 800 years old. But in the wall notes visitors are cautioned “that such forests are as vulnerable as they are majestic”. The positive message in Cathedral Grove is echoed in the mural of a coral reef in Komodo National Park, Indonesia. It is one of the few remaining viable coral reefs in the world, but the lower right side of the mural shows the beginnings of coral bleaching. This reef is not in the same dire straits as the Great Barrier Reef, where 50-60% of the reefs have been affected by bleaching, but this is a portent of things to come if ocean temperatures continue to rise.
Several images reflect the theme of urbanization: the bird’s eye view of Mushin Market in Lagos Nigeria shows very clearly how humans have irreparably altered the earth’s surface. This theme is echoed in the photograph of the Santa Ana Freeway in Los Angeles: urban sprawl has transformed the planet for human needs.
The final room of the exhibition contains what could be considered good-news stories. Burtynsky views wind and solar power, as well as electric cars, as part of the solution to global warming and one way to reduce humans’ carbon footprint. The Cerro Dominador Solar Project #1, Atacama Desert, Chile is a view of the massive solar-energy project taken from high above, so that it appears as an abstract spiral of dots of white. The concentric circles drawn in the sand suggest there will be thousands more panels in the future. This is another paradox: the landscape is being changed for a more sustainable future. Similarly, Lithium Mines #1, Salt Flats, Atacama Desert, Chile consists of huge square pools of various colours—from mustard yellow to lime green to robin’s egg blue—holding brine, which, as the liquid evaporates, leaves behind the lithium used in most consumer electronics, including electric-car batteries. However, companies are overdrawing the brine from the delicate underground ecosystem, and trees are dying. South Bay Pumping Plant #1, Near Livermore, California, USA shows windmills being used to pump water for the South Bay Aqueduct. But windmills too change the landscape, and this particular one is depleting the water table.
Conclusion
Burtynsky, Baichwal and De Pencier wanted to strike a balance between positive and negative narratives, but even what may appear to be good-news stories are often contradictory, for example Lithium Mines #1 and Tetrapods #1, Dongying. And two of the most hopeful images, of Cathedral Grove and the coral reef, show that we need to stop global warming and clear-cutting now, before it’s too late. As Joni Mitchell sang “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.”
In his essay in the book for the exhibition, Burtynsky wrote “We feel that by describing the problem vividly, by being revelatory and not accusatory, we can help spur a broader conversation about viable solutions.”, and on the T-shirt for the exhibition are the words “A shift in consciousness is the beginning of change.” I can only hope that those who see Anthropocene will be moved to think and act.
The exhibition runs until February 24, 2019. Don’t miss it!