Drawing on the KWAG Permanent Collection, A Broken Planet builds on the themes of SOS: A Story of Survival, Part III – The Planet by looking at ways that environmental harm can be found in the collection. Featuring the industrial devastation unfolding before Edward Burtynsky’s camera lens, the exhibition uses aesthetic and compositional beauty as a way to approach difficult subjects that are otherwise much easier to look away from.
Edward Burtynsky is regarded as one of the world's most accomplished contemporary photographers. His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes represent over 40 years of his dedication to bearing witness to the impact of human industry on the planet. Burtynsky's photographs are included in the collections of over 80 major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa; the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid; the Tate Modern in London, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California.
ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch
Thursday, 6 March
7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
FREE
A film by Jennifer Baichwal, Nick De Pencier and Edward Burtynsky
ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch follows the research of an international body of scientists, the Anthropocene Working Group who, after nearly 10 years of research, are arguing that the Holocene Epoch gave way to the Anthropocene Epoch in the mid-twentieth century, because of profound and lasting human changes to the Earth. At the intersection of art and science, ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch witnesses in an experiential and non-didactic sense a critical moment in geological history — bringing a provocative and unforgettable experience of our species’ breadth and impact.
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Image credit: Edward Burtynsky (Canadian, b. 1955), Carrara Marble Quarries #20, Carrara, Italy, 1993. Digital C print, 121.9 x 152.4 cm. Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery Permanent Collection: Courtesy of Edward Burtynsky, 2014. Photo: © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy of Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto.
