Photography

Photographer Edward Burtynsky’s new show focuses on environmental challenges 'at our doorstep'

geoff.vendeville — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 17:16:04 +0000

Photographer Edward Burtynsky’s new show focuses on environmental challenges 'at our doorstep'

geoff.vendeville Tue, 06/21/2022 - 13:16

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Edward Burtynsky's latest show, "In the Wake of Progress," premiered on the screens surrounding Yonge-Dundas Square as part of the Luminato Festival. It will be followed by an indoor immersive experience that runs June 25 to July 17 (photo by Jim Panou)

Mariam Matti

Topic

City & Culture

Arbor Awards

Climate Change

Honorary Degree

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Photography

Sustainability

Earlier in his career as a photographer and artist, Edward Burtynsky saw an opportunity to dedicate his life’s work to a single idea: humanity's impact on the planet.

In the 1980s, Burtynsky saw the growing sustainability challenges posed by the combination of heavy industry and billions of people.

His work would ultimately take him all over the world – and garner numerous awards and accolades – as he captured how humanity is reshaping the Earth through resource extraction, urban sprawl and manufacturing, to name a few.

Edward Burtynsky (photo by Birgit Kleber)

“I became an observer of the human condition at the scale of industry – building cities and transport systems, making clothes, all that stuff,” Burtynsky says. “There is a whole other world that exists that we don’t see.

“I thought the camera was the perfect tool to bring that world into our consciousness.”

Over the years, Burtynsky – who received an honorary degree from U of T in 2017 and supports the Natural Curiosity Environmental Education program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education’s Dr. Jackman Institute of Child Study – has produced several documentaries and photo exhibitions about environmental threats.

But he is tackling a new medium in his latest show with the Luminato Festival.

In the Wake of Progress premiered during the opening weekend of the festival on the massive screens surrounding Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto. Next, the piece will be transformed into a ticketed indoor immersive experience at the Canadian Opera Company Theatre from June 25 to July 17.

Inside the theatre, the 22-minute piece will be presented on 30-foot screens through images and film. It’s produced by Canadian music “super-producer” Bob Ezrin – who helped produce Pink Floyd's The Wall among other classic albums – and features an original score by award-winning composer and sound designer Phil Strong.

There will also be a curated gallery of photographs and high-resolution murals, two augmented reality experiences exploring the impacts and legacy of the internal combustion engine and a “Change Station,” where audiences will tackle the question: “What can I do now?”

Burtynsky wants people to walk away from his work thinking deeply and emotionally about humanity’s stark impact on the planet.

“The story is very much about what we’re doing to nature, how our success is pushing back the biodiversity,” he says. “It’s changing the nature of the oceans – we’re watching coral die off, we’re watching fisheries collapse.”

“We’re seeing all kinds of issues – deforestation, desertification, droughts, storms, heat domes. Thirty years ago, you could say climate change is something out there. Now, we can’t brush that off. It’s at our doorstep.”

Burtynsky has gone to great lengths to capture his thought-provoking artwork.

“How it appears, the time of year, the light – all those things play a really crucial role,” he says. “I’ll go back to a location four or five times under different lights.”

Sometimes it takes him years to gain access to a location. When he and his team wanted to travel to Norilsk in Russia’s High Arctic – the location of the world’s leading nickel and palladium producer – they were met with strong opposition.

“It gets called one of the most polluted cities in the world,” he says. “They said, ‘There’s only one story you want to go in and do, which is a pollution story.’

“We spent a year convincing them otherwise. We did get in, but they still didn’t trust us. We were constantly detained and taken into immigration or police offices.”

Burtynsky has always been determined to find a way in.

“I’ve always stuck to my guns. Our work is revelatory, not accusatory. We want to show the world these large-scale things,” he says.

When he’s not documenting from the ground, Burtynsky is riding in a helicopter to capture stunning landscapes at altitude. Through decades of experience, he’s learned how to work with the buzzing aircraft – often directing the pilot through his headset to find the right position to photograph.

“I’m trying to make the images look like I have my old-fashioned camera on a tripod, but the reality is I’m bouncing in a helicopter, shooting at high shutter speeds, trying to compose in motion. At the end of the day, it feels like it was a steady, contemplated and highly composed shot.”

For an artist who has spent 40 years of his career highlighting the myriad ways humanity has negatively impacted the planet, he remains optimistic.

“[Climate change] seems to be at the top of everyone’s agenda,” he says. “U of T is doing some great work in the geothermal piece and getting away from fossil fuels in their funds.

Burtynsky says he wants people to walk away from his work thinking deeply and emotionally about humanity’s stark impact on the planet (photo by Jim Panou)

“The high price of gas, as much as it hurts, will be a great motivator for us to get off gas. These changes never come without some pain. Once we get the economics right on this, change happens fast.”

Born in St. Catharines, Ont., Burtynsky was exposed to industrial spaces early in his life. The General Motors plant in his hometown sparked his interest in capturing the effects of industry.

Some of his many distinctions include Officer of the Order of Canada, the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts and eight honorary doctorate degrees – including one from U of T, which recognized him for his influence on society through his focus on environmental issues. He also received an Arbor Award from U of T in 2014 for his involvement with the Dr. Jackman Institute of Child Study, and there’s an award in his name that honours three educators across Canada every year for excellence in environmental education.

Burtynsky hopes that his new show will resonate with students, in particular.

“I hope it facilities a conversation. When you touch them emotionally, it gets their minds thinking a different way,” he says. “It’s a universal story that starts with nature and ends with nature.”

Cherry blossoms and black holes: Check out these May events

Romi Levine — Wed, 01 May 2019 16:14:22 +0000

Cherry blossoms and black holes: Check out these May events

Romi Levine Wed, 05/01/2019 - 12:14

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Cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom outside of Robarts Library (photo by Noreen Ahmed-Ullah)

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

School of Cities

Art Museum

Cherry Blossoms

Daniels Faculty of Architecture

Faculty of Arts & Science

Rotman School of Management

Science Rendezvous

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

U of T Mississauga

U of T Scarborough

April showers have brought May flowers as the cherry blossoms outside Robarts Library begin to bloom. But the Instagram-worthy foliage isn’t the only event getting people excited at the ��Ƶ this month.

May is full of fascinating events – from city-wide science, architecture and photography festivals to talks by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and a researcher on the team who captured the first-ever image of a black hole.

Here is a selection of events taking place on all three campuses this month:

May 2

Kids can learn about what it’s like to work and study at U of T at Bring Our Children to Work Day. The annual event invites appointed faculty, librarians and staff to bring children in Grades 4 to 7 for an exciting day of activities. Registration is now closed but you can find out more about the events on the downtown Toronto, Scarborough and Mississauga campuses.

Faculty and students from U of T, York, Ryerson and OCAD have been working together on a research project exploring affordable student housing in Toronto. The group will be presenting some of their findings at StudentDwell+: Reimagining Student Housing, a two-day symposium held at York University.

Donna Strickland, Nobel Prize in Physics recipient for 2018, will be delivering the Welsh Lecture in Physics at U of T. She’ll be talking about her award-winning work on ultrashort optical pulses.

Hear from Harvard University’s Peter Galison, a member of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, about what went into capturing the historic image of a black hole, at an event presented by U of T’s Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.

May 3

Exciting news for the Robarts Library expansion – crews have begun to drill the concrete to connect the library with the new Robarts Common structure. Studying at Robarts may be a little loud, but you can ask staff at the ground floor information desk and second-floor Ask Us desk for earplugs.

Shutterbugs rejoice – Toronto’s Contact photography festival is back, with captivating exhibitions taking place on U of T campuses:

See the world through the eyes of an engineer at Ambition, Innovation, and Excellence: A Decade at Skule, which will feature photographs from current students and alumni, providing an intimate look at the faculty.
Director of the International Human Rights Program in the Faculty of Law, Samer Muscati, will be showcasing photographs from his visits to Rwanda 15 and 25 years after the genocide at Hart House and at U of T Scarborough. An event to commemorate the 25^thanniversary of the genocide will be taking place at U of T Scarborough this afternoon.

May 4

American artist Carrie Mae Weems will be speaking at U of T as part of the Contact festival. The MacArthur grant recipient, whose work has been displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, will also be presenting her work at U of T’s Art Museum and at locations across the city. Her lecture is sold out but you can join the waitlist.

May 5

Roll up your sleeves and join the U of T Trash Team for the annual Clean up the Don event, where you can do your part for the environment by picking up litter along the Don River watershed.

May 8

What makes a successful city? U of T’s School of Cities is hosting an event that will explore the challenges and opportunities faced by big cities around the world for the book launch of Perfect City: An Urban Fixer’s Global Search for Magic in the Modern Metropolis, by Joe Berridge, one of the world’s leading urban planners.

Ahead of the G20 summit in Japan, the Centre for the Study of Global Japan and the G20 Research Group of U of T are hosting a one-day symposium to discuss the evolving agenda of the annual meeting of global leaders. Officials and scholars from around the world will be attending the event held at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, including Takako Ito, consulate-general of Japan in Toronto.

May 11

Glowing bacteria, mutant flies, scavenger hunts and virtual reality tours are just a few of the displays and activities at this year’s Science Rendezvous, the annual family-friendly festival. Here’s what’s happening on the downtown Toronto, Scarborough and Mississauga campuses.

May 13

This is the last week to see the work of some of U of T’s talented artists at the Master of Visual Studies graduate exhibition and the Shelley Peterson art exhibition at U of T’s Art Museum.

May 14

Listen to captivating stories told by members of Toronto’s medical community at the department of medicine’s annual Story Slam, in partnership with the Annals of Internal Medicine.

May 25

Explore some of U of T’s most fascinating spaces at this year’s Doors Open Toronto. It’s your chance to admire the architecture in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, explore One Spadina, and check out the new Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship, which will be hosting lightning lectures and interactive activities for kids.

May 28

Join urban thought leaders, policy-makers, planners, community advocates and business leaders to exchange ideas on ways to meet the challenges of governing cities in the midst of change at the Governing Cities in the 21st Century symposium. The event will feature experts including Michelynn Laflèche, vice-president of United Way Greater Toronto, Bill Peduto, mayor of Pittsburgh, and Richard Florida, University Professor at the Rotman School of Management. You can learn more and register here or watch the livestream.

May 30

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic will be at the Rotman School of Management to discuss his new book, Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (And How To Fix It), which explores the flaws in a system that rewards arrogance and loudness over humility and wisdom.

Work on an academic journal in U of T humanities, become a better writer

ullahnor — Thu, 18 May 2017 20:06:09 +0000

Work on an academic journal in U of T humanities, become a better writer

ullahnor Thu, 05/18/2017 - 16:06

Cutline

From left to right, undergraduate journal editors Lola Borissenko, Willem Crispin-Frei and Dina Ginzburg (photo by Diana Tyszko)

Elaine Smith

Author legacy

Elaine Smith

Topic

Our Community

Humanities

Academic Journals

Faculty of Arts & Science

English

Photography

For students working on a myriad of academic journals available at U of T, it's a chance to pick up editing skills that ultimately improve their own writing.

“IDIOM receives upward of 100 submissions each year,” says Dina Ginzburg, assistant editor-in-chief of U of T's English undergraduate academic journal. “Having to read through so many essays and having specific things to say about each one has trained me to quickly recognize good and bad writing, faulty logic and clunky arguments – in short, it has made me a more aware editor and a better writer.”

Willem Crispin-Frei, a fourth-year student who is majoring in classics with a double minor in classical civilization and urban studies agrees. Being editor-in-chief of Plebeian, the undergraduate classics journal “has certainly gotten me to be more thorough when editing my own papers.”

The two editors are among dozens of undergraduate students who have gained valuable experience from producing an academic journal. The Faculty of Arts & Science boasts more than a half-dozen such journals, in fields as diverse as classics and cinema studies.

Professor Donald Ainslie, principal of University College and provostial adviser on undergraduate humanities education, believes students learn valuable lessons in contributing to and creating academic journals.

“The various undergraduate journals take students’ research experiences in the humanities to the next level,” Ainslie said. “They give them the opportunity to experience the broader research context of submitting independently developed essays, revising them in light of peer critique and ultimately sharing their ideas with the broader public in published form.

“The students who run these journals also get to experience the other side of humanities research: the refereeing of papers, offering suggestions for revisions and assessing whether those revisions yield a paper with insights deserving a broader audience.”

See the top 11 reasons to study the humanities

Book by U of T professor explores humorous side of photography

ullahnor — Tue, 18 Apr 2017 20:57:08 +0000

Book by U of T professor explores humorous side of photography

ullahnor Tue, 04/18/2017 - 16:57

Blake Eligh

Author legacy

Blake Eligh

Topic

In his new book, Louis Kaplan turns his lens on the sometimes ticklish world of humorous photography.

The professor of visual studies at the ��Ƶ Mississauga recently launched Photography and Humour. The book details how photographers from the mid-1800s to today have found humour in the world, and how viewers have found amusement from photographs.

“Humour is what makes us human,” says Kaplan, who received a Jackman Humanities grant in 2015 to explore the topic. “Photographic humour gives us a view to our own mortality. It can be about about laughing in the face of death, defusing anxiety or even a discourse on identity and identification.”

The book, which is intended for a wide audience, chronicles the photographic use of humour from the early 1800s to more modern incarnations. The historical survey features 100 images from genres that include animal photo bombs, visual puns, absurdist humour, political satire and role-playing.

One of the earliest known photos to employ humour was created by Hippolyte Bayard. A pioneer in early photography, the French artist was overlooked when rival Louis Daguerre developed an alternate photo development process. Bayard registered his protest through his art in a darkly humorous 1801 photo, “Self portrait as a drowned man,” in which he pretends to have committed suicide.

“It’s sad and funny at the same time,” says Kaplan (photo above). ”Bayard has failed, but he’s trying to find a way to do something with the suffering and pain by transforming it into laughter for himself and his audience.”

For other photographers, a funny image is dependent on the kind of timing employed by stand-up comedians.

Kaplan explores the work by New York photographer Arthur “Weegee” Fellig, a crime and street photographer who was an expert at documenting tragedy but also had an uncanny knack for visual jokes. In Simply Add Boiling Water, Fellig’s photo of a factory fire (photo below) captures smoke and water streaming from a building topped by an billboard advertisement for frankfurters and the words “simply add boiling water.”

Humour can also help to shine a light on dark subjects.

“There’s a constant tension between what’s appropriate to laugh at, and what isn’t,” Kaplan says. “Humorous images can make it more comfortable to talk about what might be taboo. They can expose vulnerabilities and open up questions facing society.”

Photographers like John Heartfield, and Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps who work under the name kennardphillipps, use photomontages to make political statements about war and politics.

“These images are biting satirical humour,” Kaplan says. “You can trace that over 100 years – that need to make authoritarian figures look ridiculous. They are good examples about how humour can be serious business.”

On the lighter side, Kaplan also explores the work of artist Vik Muniz, who photographs famous artworks recreated with unorthodox and mundane materials, such as the Gorgon’s head on a dinner plate made of pasta and sauce in “Medusa Marinara” or a reproduction of Jackson Pollock’s splatter paintings rendered in chocolate sauce.

“It’s funny and conceptual and makes us think twice about what we see and believe to be real,” Kaplan says.

With the modern explosion of digital photography, Kaplan also traces the emergence of new depictions of humour like animal photo bombing.

“It shows how contemporary this topic really is,” he says.

Photography

Photographer Edward Burtynsky’s new show focuses on environmental challenges 'at our doorstep'

Cherry blossoms and black holes: Check out these May events

May 2

May 3

May 4

May 5

May 8

May 11

May 13

May 14

May 25

May 28

May 30

Work on an academic journal in U of T humanities, become a better writer

Read more about humanities at U of T

See the top 11 reasons to study the humanities

Book by U of T professor explores humorous side of photography