Edward Burtynsky: Artist Statement

For 25 years I have created images about how our civilization has imposed itself upon and transformed nature. During the course of my work I have become anxiously aware of the impact our actions are having upon the world. As a husband and father, as an entrepreneur and provider, with a deep gratitude for his birthright in a peace-loving, bountiful nation, I feel the urgency to make people aware of the consequences we could face. What we give to the future are the choices we make today.

For the past five years, I focused my attention on and made photographs about China. I began thinking about this formidable country as a subject around the time that construction began on the Three Gorges Dam. The voyages and resulting images I made during those years were as much about my personal need to understand the ecological events unfolding on our planet as they were about the powerful force China is now bringing to bear upon how the world does its business.

In my view, China is the most recent participant to fall prey to the seduction of Western ideals, the promise of fulfillment and happiness. From my experience of living in a developed nation, the troubling downside of progress is something that I am sensitive to. The mass consumerism these ideals ignite and the resulting degradation of our environment intrinsic to the process of making things to keep people happy and fulfilled frightens me. I no longer see my world as delineated by countries, with borders, or language, but as 6.5 billion humans living off a single, finite planet.