Ed Burtynsky is another person whose heart beats faster when he sees a huge industrial building or landscape. He’s a photographer who spends a lot of time looking at massive factories, huge waste dumps, quarries, mines.

Look at this picture. At first you might think it’s an abstract. Then you see the little figures standing at the bottom of the quarry and you realise the scale of the picture. Amazing.

Flowers Central will be showing Ed Burtynsky’s work from May 9th. He’s been out in China taking pictures of massive factories – one I’ve seen shows women standing in line at their workstations in little pink uniforms. It’s a vision which is deeply ambiguous – artistically it’s pretty, but I get the feeling also that this uniformity is soul-destroying, and we’re meant to notice that. There’s a potent ambiguity too in the shots of quarries and waste dumps; he creates a beautiful image out of something which is, in fact, a spoliation and ruination of nature. What should we feel?

Now film and photography are often two very different art forms, but they come together in Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary ‘Manufactured Landscapes’ which will be aired at the BFI Southbank.

Which presents me with a little conundrum. Do I go the gallery first, or see the film first?

Where: Flowers Central, 21 Cork Street

When: 9-24 May 2008

Image courtesy Flowers East Gallery,  London, UK

Post from: The London Traveler