31.01. – 15.03.2014


EDWARD BURTYNSKY
WATER
Photographs 2009 – 2013


We are pleased to present Canadian Photographer Edward Burtynsky. After his well renown OIL in 2012 at cIo Berlin we are showing a selection of work from his latest series WATER, in collaboration with Galerie Stefan Röpke, Cologne. Along with the film WATERMARK and the BURTYNSKY – WATER book (Steidl), it is Mr Burtynsky’s largest project to date, documenting the scale and impact of manufacturing and consumption on the world’s water supplies.

Burtynsky chronicles the various roles that water plays in modern life – as a source of healthy ecosystems and energy, as a key element in cultural and religious rituals and as a rapidly depleting resource. The photographs, both beautiful and haunting, create a compelling global portrait that illustrates humanity’s past, present and future relationship with the natural world.

Shooting in ten different countries for the WATER project, Burtynsky’s subjects include dry-land farming in Spain, pivot irrigation sites in Texas, and the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In these instances, Burtynsky took to the air using conventional helicopters, remote controlled helicopters and small fixed-wing aircraft, to bring the scale of the human imprint into a more meaningful perspective.

He also travelled to photograph millions of people bathing in the cleansing power of the sacred Ganges River in India; mega-dam construction on the upper Yangtze and the once-a-year silt release on the Yellow River in China, the precious virgin watersheds of British Columbia and the dry beds of the Colorado River Delta.