Over the past twenty-five years, the Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky has been an explorer of unfamiliar places where industrial activity has reshaped the surface of the land. His surveys of the man-made terrain of quarrying, mining, railcutting, recycling, oil refining, and shipbreaking remind us that these incursions into the earth arise out of perennial human needs and desires. Burtynsky's photographs may show us things that are disturbing, but they also have about them an unexpected beauty, subverting our usual notions of the sublime in nature and leading us to a new awareness of the landscape of our times." "Manufactured Landscapes, organized by the National Gallery of Canada, is the first major retrospective of Edward Burtynsky's work. This fully illustrated catalogue of the exhibition includes essays by Lori Pauli, Mark Haworth-Booth, and Kenneth Baker, and an interview with the artist by Michael Torosian."--BOOK JACKET.
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