Edward Burtynsky's China Photographs

66 Environments 37(2) Environments Journal Volume 37(2) 2009/2010

Edward Burtynsky’s China Photographs – A multidisciplinary reading

Patricia Ballamingie, Xiaobei Chen, Eric Henry and Diana Nemiroff

Abstract In this paper, the authors bring their diverse disciplinary perspectives (including insights from geography, political ecology, linguistic anthropology, visual sociology, postcolonial studies and art history) to bear on five of Burtynsky’s China photographs. Their various responses reveal the inevitable multiplicity of meanings generated by these photographs, which fit most of the categories Burtynsky used to organize his China project: old factories, new manufacturing, Three Gorges Dam, coal and urban renewal. The authors draw on personal and profes- Patricia Ballamingie is an sional stories and experience, a wealth of assistant professor, cross-appointed information on social and environmental to the Department of Geography impacts, and concepts such as Othering and Environmental Studies and and the ‘truth’ value of photographs to the Institute of Political Economy enrich the multidisciplinary exploration. at Carleton University. Situated The discussion seeks at once to dem- conceptually within the field onstrate the artistic and activist merit of critical political ecology, of Burtynsky’s photographs, while also her research interests include complicating and unsettling prevailing environmental conflict and Western interpretations of China. It also democracy, engaged scholarship, uncovers ways in which development sustainable community and urban in China and Canada both parallel and agriculture. She can be reached at connect to one another. [email protected] Résumé Xiaobei Chen is an associate Dans cet article, les auteurs apportent le professor in the Department of point de vue de leurs diverses disciplines, Sociology and Anthropology at notamment la géographie, l’écologie Carleton University. Her areas politique, l’anthropologie linguistique, la of interest include citizenship, sociologie visuelle, les études postcolo- identity, and multicultural politics niales et l’histoire de l’art, pour analyser in Canada and China, the child cinq photographies de Burtynsky sur la and the construction of modernity, Chine. Leurs réactions variées révèlent diaspora studies, post-colonial and l’inévitable diversité de significations post-socialist conditions, feminist qu’engendrent ces photographies, qui theory, and governmentality. correspondent à la plupart des catégo- ries utilisées par Burtynsky pour organ-

Copyright © Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. © Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. Copies may be made for personal and educational use. No part of this work may be reproduced or dis- tributed in any form or by any means for commercial use without permission in writing from the Editor. 68 Environments 37(2) P. Ballamingie, X. Chen, E. Henry and D. Nemiroff 69

iser son projet Chine : anciennes usines, Burtynsky shows rather than tells the devastating impacts wrought by indus- Eric Henry is an assistant nouvelles méthodes de fabrication, barrage trialization, offering both an implicit and explicit critique of modernity. He makes professor in the Department of des Trois Gorges, charbon et réaménage- visible that which would otherwise remain hidden to the masses. His work on oil, Sociology and Anthropology ment urbain. Pour enrichir l’exploration mines and quarries is particularly provocative in this regard. Burtynsky’s self- multidisciplinaire des photographies, les proclaimed theme: “nature transformed through industry,” is expressed through at Carleton University. As a auteurs s’appuient sur leur expérience et the exquisite (often described as sublime) beauty of his photographs of industrial linguistic anthropologist, he has leurs histoires personnelles et professi- landscapes. He explains: conducted extensive ethnographic onnelles, sur une mine d’information sur fieldwork on the related topics My work is a thirty year lament for the loss of nature... showing les impacts sociaux et environnementaux the human encroachment, the way in which we are extending of foreign languages, education et sur des concepts tels que la « crainte out into that raw wilderness and usurping it for our own and modernity in China. de l’autre » et la valeur de « vérité » des purposes (Burtynsky cited in Lappano 2010, 18). Diana Nemiroff is director of the photos. L’analyse cherche à démontrer sur-le-champ le mérite artistique et activ- An avid canoeist who was born in St. Catharines, Ontario – a blue-collar Carleton University Art Gallery town where General Motors was the largest employer – Burtynsky attributes his and has published extensively iste des photographies de Burtynsky, tout en venant compliquer et remettre en ques- interest in the landscape to his exposure as a child to “the pristine landscapes” on contemporary Canadian art. (2005) and “vast unspoiled lands” (2010b) of Canada’s North. His attraction She holds an appointment as tion les interprétations occidentales domi- nantes relativement à la Chine. Elle révèle evolved into a preoccupation with landscapes transformed through “industrial adjunct research professor in the également de quelles manières le dével- incursions” – a theme he felt was “large enough to become his life’s work” (2006). School for Studies in Art and oppement en Chine et au Canada se res- Burtynsky’s photographs explore the tension between attraction to a good life, Culture at Carleton University. semble et se rejoint. including its material rewards, and repulsion from the devastating impacts of that Her research interests include good life. While he describes our collective impact as “sobering,” he character- contemporary art, museology, Keywords izes the beauty of the resulting images as a “forbidden pleasure” that, ultimately, and curatorial practice. Burtynsky, China, photography, industrial- gets people to look more closely, and reflect on what they see (2006). He states: ization, environment, othering “These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern exis- tence... reflecting pools of our times” (2010a). Introduction The ambitious scope of Burtynsky’s China project and the extraordinarily This paper grew out of a panel discussion organized by the Carleton Univer- detailed evidence provided by his photographs of the impact of China’s recent sity Art Gallery in conjunction with the Gallery’s exhibition of the internationally industrial surge on its people, its landscape, and the environment – as well as renowned Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky’s photographs of industrial on the world’s economy – encouraged the panelists to continue the discussion. China, taken between 2002 and 2005. Burtynsky’s photographs engage audi- This paper, then, is a collaborative effort among Diana Nemiroff, panel modera- ences on many levels.1 They are both works of art and documents that speak tor and curator of the exhibition, and the three Carleton-based panelists: Patri- subjectively, yet systematically, about China’s rise as an industrial and manufac- cia Ballamingie, Xiaobei Chen and Eric Henry. Because of the iterative process turing giant, a development whose scale and global impact is evident in Burtyn- involved – formulating our remarks for the panel, responding to the contributions sky’s work. The exhibition presented at the Carleton University Art Gallery dur- of the other panellists, and subsequently revising our written contributions for ing winter 2009-102 consisted of twenty-two large photographs from Burtynsky’s this paper – the result is not a simple conversation. There is a richness in the extensive China project, which he intended to be a comprehensive reflection of photos that is emphasized by the diversity of discussion – although we have the new industrial China. His subjects include the old (and now decaying) heavy attempted to reflect on issues for which there was, if not consensus, then some industries, the new manufacturing sector, the vast coal and steel industry, the degree of sympathy among contributors. Our discussion challenges some of the busy shipyards, the intensive recycling activities, as well as concomitant urban assumptions a Western viewer is likely to bring to Burtynsky’s images, most renewal, and the now-completed Three Gorges Dam mega-project, which sup- particularly by contrasting them with the reactions of Chinese viewers who have plied new power on a scale that made China’s phenomenal industrial growth of encountered them online (since the China photographs have been exhibited in the last fifteen years possible. North America and Europe but not China) or through Manufactured Landscapes, an award-winning documentary film about Burtynsky’s photographs.3 We also

1 Burtynsky’s photographic works are posted online (http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/) – a tremendously open, generous and accessible gesture. This extensive body of work provides excellent fodder for analysis beyond the discussion presented here. 3 Manufactured Landscapes features images that have become exemplars of China’s mod- 2 Edward Burtynsky: China Photographs, curated by Diana Nemiroff, November 23, 2009 ernization, including the Three Gorges Dam project, factories, and the seemingly endless – February 7, 2010. http://cuag.carleton.ca/index.php/exhibitions/36/ tracts of high-rise apartment complexes.

© Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. © Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. 70 Environments 37(2) P. Ballamingie, X. Chen, E. Henry and D. Nemiroff 71 delve into areas that the photographs leave unsaid – such as the global impact medium to tell his story – for example, the way it lends itself to working in series, of industrialization on such a large scale and Canada’s involvement in China’s which gives it discursive potential. Another theme is the way he always avails development. Surprisingly, there is a relative dearth of academic literature on himself of large-format cameras, whether digital or analogue, to produce images Burtynsky, particularly from a critical social science perspective – a lacuna this with a tremendous amount of visual information. As an artist, Burtynsky keeps paper attempts to fill. his distance: He does not go inside the places where people live, and he does This paper seeks to tease out the multivalent meanings of Burtynsky’s not single anyone out in the factories where they work. So his photographs look images through an intertextual “reading” of five photographs displayed in the impersonal, objective, even if his personality is written all over them. exhibition.4 These readings arise from the disciplinary perspectives of anthropol- Art historians are very conscious of the selective nature of photographic ogy, art history, political ecology and sociology. The core of the paper is organized seeing. A social activist may argue for the “truth” of a particular image, one that around the five photographs, which represent different aspects of China’s recent reveals the extent of environmental damage caused by a tailings pond, for exam- industrial expansion as documented by Burtynsky, and conform to the categories ple. In contrast, an art historian may complicate the image by highlighting its he used to organize his project. Before exploring the individual images, however, sublime beauty. To go beyond or behind the appearance of a photograph, the art we have taken a step back to consider two factors relevant to the discussion. historian uses many of the same tools of contextualization and deconstruction First, we consider how our individual disciplines “frame” photography. Second, as a social scientist. we consider Burtynsky’s China project as a whole, specifically addressing the Henry: Burtynsky’s photographs, for all their timeless beauty, are also artifacts danger the photographs raise of Othering China and the Chinese. We suggest bounded in time and space, representing one particular alignment of social rela- this must be countered by recognizing our own complicity and connections to the tions frozen for the moment of the photograph, but which, in reality, bleed past the changes Burtynsky records. After discussing the five selected photographs, we borders of the frame and extend into both the past and future (Edwards 2002). turn our attention to a broader contextualization of Burtynsky’s work. First, we From an anthropological perspective, it is the connection of the photographs to reflect on the singular visual experience of Burtynsky’s photographs as a whole, these social relations that matters more than the visual form of the image itself. especially his use of panoramic scale and the presence of people in his images. The photographs depict both lived and deserted environments, scenes of peo- Second, we offer some thoughts on how Burtynsky’s China photographs should ple and scenes populated only by their abandoned works. But all of his images be situated, both within the context of the fine-art and documentary traditions of can be viewed as ethnographic documents: Even in the absence of the people the photographic medium as well as from the contemporary perspective of their themselves, these photographs are visual depictions of physical environments potential as activist tools. Although less simple and linear than a traditional paper, produced by, and within, social and cultural environments. They reflexively index we hope the journey through our perspectives on Burtynsky’s photographs will the human productive relationships that allowed for arrangements of industry ultimately prove satisfying. or technology. I aim, in my contribution, to provide a sense of this larger human context, including both the temporal and spatial dimensions, by highlighting the Framing the discussion role of specific human interactions in producing the physical reality represented Disciplinary approaches to photography in the photograph. Nemiroff: From an art history perspective, the photograph is a primary object Chen: From a visual sociology and postcolonial studies perspective, perhaps for analysis. We pay attention to the artist’s style and subject matter, attempt- the most fundamental premise for critically approaching photography is to avoid ing to understand them in terms of his earlier work and the work of others. For taking for granted its claim to truthful representation (certainly, a longstanding example, Burtynsky’s China photographs can be viewed in terms of his earlier critique embraced beyond these disciplines). One way of making photography’s documentation of Canadian mines, tailings ponds, quarries and what he calls “truth value” relative and context-specific is to “consider the psychological, politi- “urban mines” – metal extraction and tire recycling. They can also be viewed as cal, and cultural specificities of perception” (Gilbert 1998) – a process demon- part of a larger enterprise to systematically render “visible” whole areas of mod- strated by the multiple readings/meanings each photograph produces. As Becker ern life – such as resource extraction – that are usually only familiar to specific (1982) observes, the significance and legitimization of a photograph is to be sub-cultures of workers and industrialists, even if they are extensively discussed, found in the response it generates in those who perceive it. Photographs derive for example, in the business pages of our newspapers. As we study this body their meaning from their context – a combination of what has been written about of work, which began in the mid-eighties, several themes emerge in Burtynsky’s them (e.g., in the captions or accompanying text), other objects or ideas present approach. Apart from how focused he is on the overarching subject of industri- in the viewer’s awareness, and discussions going on around them and around alization, it is notable how he exploits certain characteristics of the photographic the subject the works are about (Becker 1982). Thus, photographs exact multiple effects and garner multiple meanings in relation to different groups of viewers 4 At the request of Eric Henry, a different (but similar) photograph from the Old Industries such as Ottawa citizens going to a gallery or Chinese bloggers. Given Burtyn- group was substituted for the two that were part of the exhibition. Henry had a familial con- sky’s spectacular success, his China photographs have become an important nection to the photograph presented here, and thus greater insights to offer. discursive site for the West to imagine China in the 21st century, in the context of

China’s rise as a global economic power and, increasingly, of its contribution to are told. In Western discourse on China, only when Chinese people criticize their urgent global environmental concerns. communist government are they deemed fellow human beings who are capable Ballamingie: From a political economy/ecology perspective, I have used Burtyn- of reason, who have aspirations that can be understood and supported, and who sky’s photographs as springboards for discussion – opportunities to consider the are worth listening to. Otherwise they are alternately pitied as the oppressed and socio-economic, political and ecological context behind the photograph. In this lifeless or dismissed as the duped. sense, I align with Henry’s approach of viewing the photographs as ethnographic Furthermore, the political economy of subject and object of knowledge documents, and with Chen’s approach of recognizing the necessarily partial, sit- (who can speak about what, and to what effect?) – a theme central to Said’s uated “truth” each photograph represents. I am particularly interested in explor- (1978) postcolonial critique of Orientalism – is also relevant to a critical apprecia- ing the theme of Burtynsky’s art as activism, and in uncovering the myriad ways tion of Burtynsky’s photographs of China. As Said (1978) explained, the Orient in which Canadians and Chinese are interconnected. was Orientalized because it could be made Oriental; the scientist, scholar, mis- sionary, trader, and/or soldier were in the Orient because they could be there, Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Other? could think about it, could afford to not make a place for natives’ perspectives in The notion of Othering proved to be one of the most salient themes to emerge their thinking. More than any other visual or verbal art, photography is a medium in the context of the panel. Since we allude to it directly in our reflections on indi- that garnered a particular power, historically, as an imperialist discourse because vidual photographs, we introduce it briefly. of positivist assumptions that to see is to know – and because of its mechanical Ballamingie: Most Western viewers of Burtynsky’s China photographs probably mode of image reproduction. This power is often further augmented by skilful contemplate industrialization, or the sheer scale of China’s environmental impact. framing and intentional composition (Gilbert 1998, Hight and Sampson 2002). But Burtynsky’s photographs should also challenge Western viewers to reflect Whether such imperialist power is intended or unintended by the artist, critically on the concept of Othering – the myriad ways in which we construct the weighty history of photography’s role in representing the non-Western Other other peoples based on perceived differences of social identity such as gender, compels some questions about the power of the photographer-as-knower, truth race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. Of course, this process of Othering is intrinsically claims valorised by photographs, and a consideration of what is subjected to tied to how we create our own identities of self. Edward Said (1978) explores the underexposure or overexposure – what is seen but not heard. Some critical notion of Othering in the context of Orientalism. He argues that Western preju- awareness of the political economy of photographic representations is evident in dice and romanticization of the Orient, based largely on false (and ultimately Chinese commentaries. For example, one online commentator wrote in response homogenizing and denigrating) assumptions serves to construct a single ‘Orient’ to the photographs: as a cohesive whole, rather than a vast region (most of Asia as well as the Middle If the Chinese can manufacture [luxurious goods], can live East) that includes diverse cultures, countries, and peoples. In the spirit of break- [comfortably], and can do so without creating much pollution, ing apart the process of Othering, I aim to uncover the ways in which Canadians then they can also afford not to be preoccupied with [pressing are complicit in (and connected to) China’s development choices, and the lives daily needs], they can go around the world taking photographs, of Chinese workers, at least in part. make criticisms here and there (HuTong 2009). Chen: Certainly, this complicity and interconnection is acknowledged in China. As S/he, however, went on to acknowledge the value of Burtynsky’s work by Jin comments (in relation to the documentary film Manufactured Landscapes): pointing out that Burtynsky’s photographs do document pollution in China and Western viewers should have no trouble understanding from cannot be simply equated with the strongly ideological CNN reporting. the documentary and the photographer how the people on this miserable land are sacrificing themselves to foot the bill for Western societies’ consumption, environmental protection, Reading the photographs and sustainable development (Jin 2009). Having introduced the exhibit, the authors (including their respective disciplinary For Jin, China’s helplessness in the pursuit of modernity and anxiety over approaches to photography), and the concept of Othering, this section explores being at the end of the global manufacturing chain is written on the faces of fac- five of Burtynsky’s photographs. Contributions from the four authors vary accord- tory workers, rural elderly people, and migrants displaced by the Three Gorges ing to their interests and expertise – as a result, some photographs elicit stronger Dam – as well as its construction workers. responses than others. All of these photographs are large format (typically over 1m), colour images. We appreciate permission to reproduce them here since the Yet, Burtynsky’s photographs also seem to reproduce Western-centric ste- black and white reproductions offer only a limited sense of their impact, espe- reotypes of the Chinese Other. To many Western viewers, these photographs cially in regards to their scale and richness of detail. express the strangeness and fearfulness of the scale of things in China. They communicate oppression and passivity, consistent with the somewhat stereotyp- Photo 1: Old Factories #4, Shenyang Heavy Machinery Group ical (and reductionist) view that the Chinese are subjects who just do what they Burtynsky photographed many derelict old factories in Shenyang City and Fus-

© Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. © Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. 74 Environments 37(2) P. Ballamingie, X. Chen, E. Henry and D. Nemiroff 75 hun City in China’s northeast as part of his China project. Until recently, the photograph poses this history to us as a question: What happened? Where did densest concentration of heavy industry was found in this area. Many of the fac- all the people go? tories were built by occupying Japanese forces in the 1930s. However, since the I have some experience, not only with this region of China, but with the fac- 1990s, economic restructuring has resulted in extensive job losses for workers tory itself. I conducted a year of ethnographic field research in Shenyang in 2005, in these state-run industries. In Shenyang, many of the old State Owned Enter- addressing the question of how China is composing itself as a modern nation, prises are being demolished and rebuilt as industrial parks outside the city. and visited the Shenyang Heavy Machinery Group as part of that project. There Henry: Burtynsky’s photographs of the Shenyang Heavy Machinery Group, is also a more personal connection to this factory, a connection made through located in the industrial Tiexi district of the northeastern city of Shenyang, illus- family. My father-in-law, Mr. Pan, was a labourer in this factory for over twenty- trate the temporal and spatial aspects of photograph as ethnographic document. five years, from 1971 until taking medical retirement in 2002. My wife recalls Since policies of economic reform were instituted in the 1980s, Shenyang, like childhood memories of stealing scrap metal off the factory floor and selling it to other major industrial cities in China, has seen a surge of unemployment and the local recycling depot for money to buy candy. Reflections such as these offer general decline in the standard of living for the working class as emphasis has the potential to appreciate the social context behind and beyond the photograph, shifted from heavy to light manufacturing, and state-owned enterprises have been and the chance to answer some of the questions that the photograph poses. forced to rationalize and scale back their operations. Because of this, Shenyang The first plane of experience to explore beyond the photograph is spatial; is now often referred to as China’s “rustbelt”. ‘Old Factories #4’ provides a power - the factory depicted above shows a vast productive space, but not the surround- ful representation of the decline of industry and its effect on the landscape – in ing areas, which were just as much a part of the factory for the workers. The this case, a vast yet empty factory space, cluttered with rubble and populated Shenyang Heavy Machinery Group (now called the Northern Heavy Machinery by a few solitary workers. The remains of productive activity – some still-glowing Group) occupied an entire city block, over a kilometre long on each side, and was smelter pits, hanging cranes and half-finished construction – evoke an obvious enclosed within brick walls on all sides. The wall is punctured in a few spots by but apparently distant past, a time when the factory floor bustled with labour. The gates (complete with retractable barricades) that controlled entrance and exit for raw material shipments, finished products and the workers themselves. Within Photo 1: Old Factories #4, Shenyang Heavy Machinery Group, Tiexi these gates, however, was an entire community. Maoist industrial philosophy of District, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, 2005 (Colour photograph) the early socialist period called for industrial units modelled on the agricultural communes taking root in the countryside. Like the collectivized farmers, labourers at each factory would work, eat, sleep, be ill, be entertained and be educated beside each other. Factories provided residential dormitories on site for the families of the workers. This factory, for instance, contained several cafeterias (one large enough to feed all of the workers at once), two hospitals, an emergency medical clinic, a theatre, athletic facilities and a communal bathhouse. In other words, the factory was as much a living space as it was an industrial one. The photograph also depicts only one derelict workspace, at a time when other areas of the overall factory remained productive. The second plane of experience is temporal. In the photograph the factory appears largely deserted, no longer churning out the industrial machines that once drove China’s economy. To a degree this reflects the timing of the photograph, taken in 2005 at perhaps the factory’s lowest point. The Shenyang Heavy Machinery Group had its origins in the Japanese occupation of Manchuria from 1932 until the end of the Second World War. The Japanese began organizing heavy industrial production in China’s northeast, both to support their own modernization and to legitimate their control of the region (Duara 2003, 68-9). After the war, socialist principles of production favoured the continuation of heavy manufacturing and the surrounding area provided ample natural resources (notably steel and coal). The factory expanded several times during the early socialist era, both in terms of size and number of workers employed. In 1971, Mr. Pan was assigned to the factory after returning from a period of labour in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution – a near-universal experience for students of this Photo © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier, Toronto. era called xiaxiang or “down to the village.”

The 1970s were the culmination of the Shenyang Heavy Machinery Group’s Photo 2: Manufacturing #6A and 6B Hongqingting Shoe Factory potential but were soon followed by a time of economic rationalization. The “open- China’s new manufacturing sector was a major component of Burtynsky’s proj- ing and reform” (gaige kaifang) policy initiated in the 1980s led to an overhaul of ect. Documenting the new “manufacturing landscape” in the southeast of the the command economy and the closure of many state enterprises. The Shenyang country, Burtynsky focuses on the huge scale of the new plants, showing crowds Heavy Machinery Group survived, but saw declining demand for its products and of workers during shift changes, at their work stations, and on their cafeteria a contraction of its labour force. Many of the social welfare institutions associated breaks. He frequently uses a diptych format to present a panoramic long-shot of with the factory were closed (including the hospital and school) in the late 1990s factory interiors. – although workers still had access to health insurance. Mr. Pan took a medical Ballamingie: These photographs remind me of one of the most obvious ways retirement for nerve problems in 2002, when the factory’s business appeared Canadians are complicit in (and connected to) China’s development – through to be unsustainable. This was not, however, the end for the factory. At about the plethora of manufactured goods (and increasingly food) imported from this time, an ethnic Chinese investor from Singapore bought a minority share in China. In fact, China is second only to the United States as Canada’s most sig- the factory, and tasked it with producing heavy equipment for his other industrial nificant trading partner, with products “Made in China” accounting for a roughly ventures, including mining equipment. In the late 2000s, the factory was also 10% share of our total imports (Statistics Canada 2007). China’s rural-urban awarded a contract to produce the drilling machinery and other materials for migration, coupled with its enormous population of over 1.3 billion, accentuates Shenyang’s pending subway system. Production was moved from the site in Tiexi its relative competitive advantage in manufacturing products with a high labour to a location far outside the city, to provide space for further expansion and limit component. Thus, this image of workers toiling in the Hongqingting Shoe Fac- urban pollution. While the Northern Heavy Machinery Group is still a shadow of tory, should not evoke the notion of Other, but rather, should encourage viewers its former self, it is no longer the ghost town shown in Burtynsky’s photographs. to critically examine the ways in which they are connected to these people and The photograph can depict a point in space and time, but a greater story emerges industrial processes. Canadians enjoy a high material standard of living based in when considering the context within which it was produced.

Photo 2a: Manufacturing #6A, Hongqingting Shoe Factory, Wenzhou, Photo 2b: Manufacturing #6B, Hongqingting Shoe Factory, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, 2004 (Colour photograph) Zhejiang Province, 2004 (Colour photograph)

Photo © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier, Toronto. Photo © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier, Toronto.

© Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. © Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. 78 Environments 37(2) P. Ballamingie, X. Chen, E. Henry and D. Nemiroff 79 part on cheap imports that, one could argue, do not adequately reflect the nega- care, and public education to these workers and their families. However, to tive social and environmental externalities associated with their production. migrant workers these factory jobs represent one of the few available means to Without doubt, Burtynsky’s images generate questions, ideally spurring the pull themselves and their families at home out of abject poverty. If oppressive viewer to investigate more fully: Do workers earn living wages? How does the power – whether originating from the Chinese state or factory management – is workforce break down by gender and age? Do workers get breaks?5 Benefits? what Western viewers see in these images, some Chinese commentators in fact What is the air quality in the factory like? What company are they making shoes see another mode of power – the power of the Western gaze and recognition. for? Can workers afford to buy a pair of the shoes they make? Are there indepen- Jin writes: dent inspectors that monitor the ethical treatment of employees – in particular, When the photographer demanded all the workers on the health, safety and environmental standards? assembly lines to face the camera, when the photographer demanded a country elder to face the camera, the shy and Chen: At the same time, these photographs bring to mind photographs of Chi- puzzled looks of tens of thousands objectified objects [tell us nese labourers on the west coast of North America around the turn of the last that] China longs to be merged into the globalized world, longs century. Philosopher Elaine Scarry (1998) has observed that underexposure to be recognized [as modern] (Jin 2009). and overexposure are two essential methods of depicting the Other. Are these photographs an exemplification of overexposure, in the sense that they make Nemiroff: For many of us who have never seen the inside of a factory, or won- overly visible certain aspects of reality and compel attention, while other aspects dered how everyday objects like shoes are made, this photograph is a fascinat- of reality are unavailable for attention and hence absent from the outset? Are ing document. ‘Manufacturing #6A and 6B’ are the left and right sides of a diptych the often faceless Chinese factory workers underexposed and rendered name- that shows the full length of the conveyer belt that links the individual work sta- less, story-less, and agency-less (except perhaps for their extreme dexterity)? tions from one end of the factory to the other, moving the part of the shoe one Are they at the same time overexposed at their work stations, in their lines, in worker has completed down to the next worker for his or her contribution. On their canteens, and with their laundry, tropes of gigantic, oppressive uniformity each worker’s table are the specific parts of the shoe he or she is responsible for. through which they become predominantly known to a Western audience? Do Blurred spots of colour on the conveyer belt testify to the continual movement of the photographs allow viewers to recognize real people, their aspirations, their the product – a literal representation of ‘productivity’. A far cry from the artisan’s difficulties, and their perspectives? Do they present the complexities and ambi- workshop, the economics of modern manufacturing is based on breaking each guities of post-socialist experience in China? step of the process into a specialized task, requiring skill, precision, and speed A common reading of these photographs is to see the oppression and (and the shoe industry is one of the more complex today, just think of the elabo- exploitation of the agency-less, “ant-like” people (Albrecht-Heiks 2007). It is rate construction of a Nike running shoe). unsurprising for this to be the dominant message given the long history of representations of the Chinese people in that vein. A sense of threat also circulates Photo 3: Dam #6, Three Gorges Dam Project in discourses surrounding photographs of China’s manufacturing sector. China’s The Three Gorges Dam – the world’s largest and most powerful hydroelectric emergence as a great economic and political power definitely produces unease dam – was the starting point for Burtynsky’s China project. He photographed in the West (particularly as its massive population joins the ranks of the con- both the dam itself and the large-scale demolition of cities and relocation of their sumer society, further straining world resources,6 and dominating global manu- populations in newly created cities that its construction necessitated. This photo- facturing). Burtynsky himself (2006) noted the “competitiveness” of these facto- graph depicts five of the 34 turbines that make up the structure and today furnish ries in his TED7 award reception speech. A photograph of assembly line workers most of the power required to run China’s new industries. in a North American factory would probably communicate “jobs” to the viewer, Chen: The Three Gorges Dam is the latest example of the modern quest for a meaning that may be missing in Western interpretations of photographs of power and progress through mega-projects, but Canadian parallels exist. For manufacturing in China. example, consider the site of the St. Lawrence Seaway and International Hydro Without doubt, as I argued elsewhere (Chen and Chan 1997), rural-to- Electric project, which is probably as significant as the Three Gorges Dam in urban migrant labourers face many layers of marginalization – there is an urgent many respects – at least in a Canadian context. When the project was completed need to extend labour protection (much resisted by foreign companies), health in 1958, over 6,500 people were displaced by the state in the name of progress (roughly the same proportion of regional population as that displaced by Three

5 Gorges). Apple orchards and historically significant burial grounds were sub- Burtynsky (2006) explains that workers eat lunch in 8-10 minutes. merged, similar to the loss of orange groves and archaeological sites around the 6 See Brown’s (1995) seminal analysis of the increased pressure on world resources as China develops. Three Gorges Dam (The Lost Villages Historical Society 2009). My partner, who 7 TED – Technology, Entertainment, Design – is a non-profit organization dedicated to grew up in the region and worked as a young man on the Seaway project as a spreading worthwhile ideas through free online streaming videos of some of the world’s heavy-equipment operator, recalls unfair compensation for land appropriated – most remarkable people. For more information, go to: http://www.ted.com/ an issue that similarly fuelled much local conflict around the Three Gorges Dam.

Photo 3: Dam #6, Three Gorges Dam Project, Yangtze River, 2005 (Colour has informed at least the Chinese understanding of the Dam. photograph) Ballamingie: This photograph represents yet another way in which Cana- dians are directly implicated in China’s development – through participation in (and endorsement of) the Three Gorges Dam. In fact, five Canadian companies and utilities formed a consortium – the Canadian International Project Manag- ers Yangtze Joint Venture (CYJV)8 – to conduct the $14 million feasibility study for the dam (completed in 1988). This three-year study, financed by the Cana- dian International Development Agency (CIDA), ultimately approved this project – the most massive human transformation of a landscape ever attempted. Thus, Canadian tax dollars facilitated a highly controversial project that forced the relocation of between 1 and 3.5 million people (estimates vary widely, depending on the source), flooded thirteen full-sized cities (which had to be dismantled by hand and/or demolished by dynamite), resulted in the loss of rich agricultural land, and, as Burtynsky (2006) noted in his TED Talk, when filled with water, created a measurable wobble in the earth’s rotation. Many engineers left the project because it was deemed to be too big; CIDA withdrew from the project in 1992 and the World Bank (part of the initial Steering Committee along with CIDA) noted several unresolved issues in the feasibility study that China ultimately chose to ignore. However, it is worth noting that even beyond the feasibility study, Cana- dian firms have secured contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to provide systems management technology and training, to build turbine generators, to build cement plants, to install transmission lines, and so on.9 While not directly evident in their subject matter, these photographs provide an opportunity to consider broader themes and interconnections between Canada and China. Photo 4: Tanggu Port Photo © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier, Toronto. Burtynsky grouped his photographs of China’s booming steel industry under the rubric Coal and Steel, drawing attention to the fuel that largely powers the indus- Neither group of locals in Canada nor China had any say about the project itself try and to its end product. Although China possesses large coal reserves, it also or the amount of compensation they would receive. The St. Lawrence Seaway imports additional supplies from around the world to meet demand. project has, by and large, been conveniently forgotten beyond the local area; but Ballamingie: One point of obvious ecological connection between China and interestingly, Three Gorges Dam controversy triggered local interests around the Canada (not to mention other nations) is through our shared global atmosphere. St. Lawrence Seaway project in “rethinking their own place in history” (Parr et al. The expansive piles of coal heaped at Tanggu Port ought to remind viewers 2009) and commemorating the casualties of progress. that (for better or worse) coal is the world’s most abundant fossil fuel. China, Without doubt, the Three Gorges Dam project is controversial. Similarly, there with 13% of the world’s global reserves, is the world’s largest consumer of coal, is no doubt which side of the debate Burtynsky’s narratives about his photographs from which it generates almost 69% of its total electricity. Several new coal- of the Dam take. The Dam, however, seems to exemplify the complexity of pursing fired power plants come online each week, and demand for electricity grows by environmental justice, the elusiveness of an uncomplicated and uncompromised an estimated 10% each year (Block 2009). However, while it yields a high net good, and the political nature of choosing what to privilege (Zerner 2000). While energy when burned, coal also has a high environmental impact. Emissions are the Dam has massively transformed landscapes and resulted in increasing risks of landslides (and potentially other threats), its hydroelectric generators and naviga- tion facilities are expected to reduce China’s overall greenhouse gas emissions 8 The CYJV consortium included Acres International, BC Hydro, Hydro-Québec Interna- tional, and the SNC-Lavalin Group. by reducing coal and fuel consumption. Even the overall impact on human lives is 9 more nuanced than critics portray. For example, while the Dam admittedly obliter- For example, the following Canadian firms secured lucrative contracts associated with the Three Gorges Dam: Dominion Inc., $64 M to build a cement plant in 1994; AGRA ated homes, fertile agricultural land and archaeological sites, it also resulted in Monenco, $17M to provide systems management technology and training for Chinese much better flood control. Each year, floods on the lower Yangtze River notoriously managers in 1995; GE Canada, $320M to build 3 turbine generator units in 1997; Hydro- took many lives and wiped out many homes – the local social memory of which Quebec Int., $2.85M to supervise installation of 900 km of transmission line in 1999 (Probe International 2005).

10 Carbon intensity is the amount of carbon emitted per unit of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 11 Glaciers in the Tibetan Plateau feed the Ganges, the Indus, the Brahmaputra, the 12 Even in colour, “Tangu Port, Tianjin” appears black and white, except for the reddish hue Mekong, the Yangzi and the Yellow Rivers. of the van parked on the left.

© Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. © Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. 84 Environments 37(2) P. Ballamingie, X. Chen, E. Henry and D. Nemiroff 85 they depicted it at all, it was its terrifying, apocalyptic side they emphasized. million people are expected to move into urban areas in the next 10-20 years. Not until the early twentieth century did Futurist and Constructivist painters and Reconstruction of Shanghai usually involves demolishing longstanding designers create images of industry that gloried in the mechanization of urban neighbourhoods and erecting high rises to accommodate the swelling popula- life. It was left to photo-journalists to report on the collateral effects of industrial- tion. Certainly, the vertical scalability of such intensive urban housing projects ization on urban dwellers and on the countryside. (clearly demonstrated in the photo) ought to be lauded over an alternative such Photo 5: Urban Renewal #5, City Overview From Top of Military Hospital as suburban sprawl. Also, it is worth noting that average living space per capita An important part of Burtynsky’s China project focussed on the subject of urban varies significantly around the globe, with Chinese people living in approximately th renewal. According to figures available on the artist’s website, China’s urban 1/6 of the space of their North American counterparts. According to the Ministry population has increased from 72 million in 1952 to almost 524 million in 2003. of Construction in China (cited in Burns and Brown 2006), North Americans enjoy To accommodate their new urban populations, large cities like Shanghai and 646 sq. ft., while Britons live in 409 sq. ft., Japanese in 334 sq. ft., and Chinese Beijing have embarked on extensive urban renewal projects. in 108 sq ft. Ballamingie: Rural-urban migration in China has significantly intensified in the last Henry: The negative associations Westerners have with urban renewal and fifty years, especially in large cities like Shanghai (shown here) and Beijing, thus large-scale construction in China perhaps stem from a culturally specific notion paralleling other, similar human migrations around the world. Homo sapiens is of preservation. During my time in Shenyang, the last vestiges of the colonial becoming an increasingly urbanized species. This movement of population from a past – administrative and government buildings constructed by the Japanese rural lifestyle – with a relatively small ecological footprint – to an urban population – were being torn down to make way for new residential complexes. Based on – with a proportionately larger footprint – further strains already precarious ecolog- an urban mapping project I carried out, I estimated that one fifth of the neigh- ical and social systems. The challenge becomes how to house, feed, and provide bourhood I lived in had either been, or was in the process of being, torn down adequate infrastructure and jobs for these urban newcomers. In China, some 400 and rebuilt since my arrival nine years earlier. Yet my own ambivalence about the loss of “heritage” and “history” was largely foreign and incomprehensible to my Chinese friends. Why should those po fangzi (old, rundown houses) not be Photo 5: Urban Renewal #5, City Overview From Top of Military Hospital, torn down in favour of elegant new apartments? Who would rather live in a dirty Shanghai, 2004 (Colour photograph) old building (with limited amenities, unreliable heating, leaking roofs and so on) when they could live somewhere clean and neat? In other words, the nature of lived space in China was cast in particularly moral terms, with new urban spaces associated with high-quality citizens and economic success while rundown areas signified poverty and an outdated adherence to Socialist ideals. When my own in-laws were informed that their apartment block, an example of Soviet-inspired factory housing built in the 1950s, would be torn down, there was some obliga- tory grumbling about the amount of compensation. But there was also a palpable sense of excitement about moving somewhere new, where guests would not have to be escorted up darkened stairwells with a flashlight, where there would be room for a laundry machine, and the bathroom would have a modern toilet. In other words, Westerners may lament the destruction of old neighbourhoods as a loss of history or a unique way of life, but most Chinese look forward to that loss. I was repeatedly told that, with a five thousand year history, what did the loss of some old buildings really matter? History in China was a product of social life, of speaking the language and living the culture, rather than preserving architectural remnants of the past. Chen: Even though residential densification is typically considered an environmental plus, negative characterizations such as “China with its monstrous high- rise residential buildings” (Cai 2008) probably reflect the reactions of most West- ern viewers. This, in my view, is partially produced by a mentality that assumes China’s backwardness regarding the environment. Scholars such as Chapin (2004) point to the lack of confidence in non-Western local people’s awareness of environmental issues and commitment to environmental values as a limita- Photo © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier, Toronto.

© Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. © Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. 86 Environments 37(2) P. Ballamingie, X. Chen, E. Henry and D. Nemiroff 87 tion of Western environmental activism (as typified by large environmental non- that ... but the slow and steady lens at once takes the viewers governmental organizations). Heatherington (2005) further observes that recent into a meditation on China’s modernization (Yi 2007). critical work on global environmentalism urges a deeper exploration of funda- Another blogger stated: mental questions about what is missing in representations of the environment from other areas of the world (see also DeLuca 1999, Sawyer and Agrawal 2000, [Burtynsky] has documented our most unforgettable historic Argyrou 2005). Such representations are widely circulated in the popular media, moment, and the enormous cost paid for development by a in documentaries, and within environmental campaigns. Heatherington argues vast country overburdened by its population. If this country the need to make room for the multiplicity of environmental practices that exist becomes strong in the end, we should forever remember the around the world and urges greater humility – Westerners must not assume that sacrifices, both financial and psychological, made by its every they are better informed and know best. family, every individual (Ning 2006). In fact, within the confines of their apartments, outside the view of the West, many Chinese live a lifestyle that is often far more environmentally-conscious Reflecting on the broader context than in Canada. To wit, they turn off lights when they leave a room; keep a basin Scale and the Human Presence in Burtynsky’s Photographs in the sink so water can be used to first wash vegetables, then to wash hands, Nemiroff: We can characterize the human presence in Burtynsky’s China photo- and finally to flush the toilet; use smaller household appliances; and purchase graphs according to two strategies employed by the artist. On the one hand the groceries from permanent daily farmers’ markets selling locally produced food. human presence is subtle and indirect: People appear tiny and at first go unno- On my annual trips to China, I also note more dual-flush toilets in big cities in ticed in, for example, some of the Three Gorges Dam photographs, particularly China than in Canada. Since 2002, Shanghai Municipal Government has gradu- the later ones, such as Dam # 6 (included above), where the vast size of the tur- ally replaced an estimated 600,000 old 13 litres per flush (Lpf) toilets (used pre- bines is contrasted with the small figures of the workers on the right. In another dominantly in public buildings and subsidized housing) with more water-efficient photo of the Three Gorges Dam project, Feng Jie # 6 (2002), the landscape, 9Lpf toilets for free (Li 2005). Recently, China’s central government implemented including its human occupants, is seen at such distance that it is impossible to a compulsory standard of 6Lpf toilets, making it illegal to produce and sell toilets do more than identify their presence; any sense of individuality is lost. However, that consume more water. This stringent environmental standard will not only this is not true of all the Three Gorges Dam photographs. In some, Burtynsky result in the gradual disappearance of less efficient toilets from the market, but shoots from closer up, so spectators can empathize with people contemplating also represents progress well beyond other jurisdictions. Of course, many of their demolished houses and trying to salvage what they can. The strategy is these conservation measures are driven by economic motives, but the same the same: the dwarfed human presence gives visual expression to Burtynsky’s can be said of the West. Economic considerations play a central role in virtually environmental critique, which, as I noted in my comments regarding Photo 4, is every environmental program, from establishing a carbon tax to reducing the use tinged with Romanticism. of plastic bags. A second strategy is visible in the emphatic human presence in the Manu- Most Chinese commentators appreciate that Burtynsky’s photographs facturing photographs. Although Burtynsky did photograph isolated individuals document both the human and environmental costs associated with China’s rise at work, for the most part, his attention is directed to undifferentiated masses of as a global economic power. Commenting on Burtynsky’s photographs as pre- workers coming out of the factory at lunchtime or sitting and standing, row upon sented in Manufactured Landscapes, Jin Jian said: row, at their work stations. Their uniforms – often strongly coloured – contribute [Burtynsky] captured the nature of this land: we have used to the sense of anonymity at the same time as they create a vivid visual image. manufactured landscapes to demonstrate our strength, but in The interpretation of these scenes of workers is left open. The photographer’s the process lost our cultural soul; we have used manufactured captions are neutral, simply identifying place and date. landscapes to embrace the world, but in the process neglected our own people; we have used manufactured landscapes In order to interrogate the artist’s intentions further, viewers can go to his to complete the 30-year stirring, but in the process bred website. For the most part, the information offered on the website is factual and complaints, losses and anxiety (Jin 2009). concerns itself with China’s role in the global supply chain for manufactured goods and the economic impact of the new manufacturing sector on its youth- If the story of China’s rising modernity is mostly told in negative terms in the ful peasant population, which has been leaving the countryside in record num- West, to many Chinese it is a complex story of the dilemmas of post-colonial and bers. However, the opening statement in the section on manufacturing – which post-socialist modernity, hard work, sacrifices, and gains. Blogger Yi, comment- states that “in the southern province of Guangdong, one can drive for hours ing on Burtynsky’s work documented in Manufactured Landscapes, wrote: along numerous highways that reveal a virtually unbroken landscape of factories These landscapes are not formed by nature. They are a product and workers’ dormitories” – makes clear that his main aesthetic preoccupation of the hard work of Chinese people. Reform has brought is to convey this impression of gigantic scale in visual terms. Notably, it is only positive changes to China. It is simply impossible to overstate

© Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. © Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. 88 Environments 37(2) P. Ballamingie, X. Chen, E. Henry and D. Nemiroff 89 in the Manufacturing photographs that his already large format (about 1.3 by 1.7 sense of inter-generational responsibility). First, he wanted to encourage people metres) seems inadequate and he resorts to panoramic diptychs to emphasize to join in the global conversation around sustainability. To this end, he directed the enormous size of the factory interiors. people to WorldChanging.com – “a non-profit media organization headquar- tered in Seattle, WA, that comprises a global network of independent journalists, Chen: What stands out for me in Burtynsky’s photographs of China is precisely designers and thinkers.”13 the not-so-subtle presence of people in the images. Burtynsky’s photographs Burtynsky responds to the positive tone embodied of other subjects rarely include direct representations of humans. In contrast, by this organization’s blog-styled entries, which can best be described as solu- his iconic representations of China’s manufacturing sector depict rows of uni- tions-based journalism that focuses on the positive and the possible. In fact, - formed, faceless or expressionless workers in pink, blue, or yellow. “Manufactur- Burtynsky is one of three members of its Board of Directors (along with Alex Stef ing #6A and #6B”, shown above, are examples. (Also see “Manufacturing #16, fen and Paul Fleming), and he donated photos to help raise awareness about Bird Mobile, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province” 2005 and “Manufacturing #17, Deda the organization. His other two wishes related to sponsoring a groundbreaking Chicken Processing Plant, Jilin Province” 2005 (which can be viewed online); competition to motivate kids to invent ideas on sustainability, and to receiving the Gessell 2010). What underlies this shift in focus? What do the photographer and guidance necessary to create an IMAX film. Interestingly, Burtynsky’s own web his viewers find so intriguing about these images? Do Chinese workers con- site provides links to grassroots environmental organizations, including: TED, - stitute the Chinese industrial landscape viewed through Burtynsky’s lens? Do WorldChanging, Bullfrog Power, Basel Action Network, Al Gore, and ZeroFoot images like these somehow capture something that is culturally unique to China print, amongst others. – described by one commentator as the “numbingly ant-like numerousness of Burtynsky has achieved international success for his stunning, compelling, the Chinese population” (Albrechet-Heiks 2007). Some Chinese commentators and seductive photographs – an impressive body of work that systematically have noted this shift; one compared Burtynsky’s photographs of China and Aus- documents landscapes radically transformed through industrialization. But per- tralia – his only two country-themed collections: haps more significantly, his work aims to challenge the status quo, document and If you look at his work on Australia, you mostly feel the confrontation make visible the often devastating (if eerily beautiful) impacts of industrial devel- between humans and nature and the unyielding human force. He opment, and ultimately, show how Westerners are connected to (and complicit almost always used the long-range. But when he photographed in) people’s lives, development choices, and industrialization the world over. China, on many occasions he used close-ups to depict humans’ Indeed, his work can be viewed as art, documentary and activism – in large part, (Chinese) destruction of nature and greed – garbage and rust... depending on the viewer. So… he did the conceptualization, then just went to China to find Chen: Arguably, Burtynsky’s photographs of China come across more as docu- evidence (Gongnonglianmeng 2009). mentary than his other work. Burtynsky responds ambiguously as to whether his Ballamingie: Burtynsky employs scale as a conceptual lens effectively, whether photography is primarily art or documentary aimed at provoking social change. through the vast expanses he most often uses to gaze upon the human impact He has asserted that his photography would have the greatest impact as exhib- on the environment (most notably, its topography), or through his, at times, ited fine art and not as printed documentary photographs (Risch 2009). In most micro-scale, almost intimate focus on details. But the concept of scale repre- of his work, he usually provides no more than the date and place of a photograph sents more than simply relative or absolute size; scale can also be applied to in the caption – a hallmark of artistic photographs. At the same time, in his public time. Burtynsky’s interest in temporal scale is perhaps indirectly evident through lectures and on his website, his concern for the environment and sustainability his fascination with massive landscape transformations – a scope of change that is impossible to miss; he even gestures towards social justice issues such as would typically take place over geologic time, but instead, occurs within a short wages. He also often provides a good amount of explicit social context for his span of time. In this regard, Burtynsky (2010b) documents what might be char- photographs in lectures and on his website. His China photographs, however, acterized as brash human folly: sometimes representing formidable accomplish- unlike other collections on his website, are the only ones to include accompany- ment but always with “collateral damage.” Burtynsky explains that the Industrial ing background narratives. One Chinese commentator remarked: Revolution resulted in a technological skin through which “we isolate ourselves As a professional photographer, he selected a pretty good from the forces of nature.” He further asserts: “We become the force to fear on topic, spent quite a bit of time, and produced some meaningful the planet.” Such statements are examples of what could be called the Romantic stuff. But, as a photographer, he seems to be talking too much. attitude underlying Burtynsky’s photographs. This attitude is not just critical of How come he had to do some narratives only to photographs of environmental damage; it proposes an alternate vision of human integration with China? Because the photographs themselves are not forceful nature. enough. If so, one has to say that is sad for a professional photographer. Of course, if because of these narratives, he got Burtynsky’s Photography – Art, Documentary or Activism? Ballamingie: In 2005, when Burtynsky won the TED Prize, he was granted three wishes (which, incidentally, he dedicated to his two daughters, invoking a strong 13 For more information, go to: http://www.worldchanging.com/

some extra attention, then, as a self-employed entrepreneur, shot to test the iPhone he was assembling and forgot to erase before it was he is very successful (HuTong 2009). shipped abroad. Another Chinese commentator claimed that the images reflect only a super- Burtynsky’s deliberate objectivity, seen also in his method of analyzing and ficial understanding of the events and social phenomena being photographed systematically recording his chosen subject – a strategy far removed from the (Afan 2009). Superficiality, however, can easily be excused if one insists that casual and superficial snapshots of the tourist, who will typically focus upon the Burtynsky’s photographs are largely art, and not documentary. Perhaps the more picturesque and unfamiliar elements of the country he or she is visiting – may be salient question is whether Western viewers treat these photographs as art or linked to the aesthetic neutrality promoted in a certain strain of art photography, documentary? If their effects are those of documentary photography, then they best represented by the emergence of the so-called “new topographers” in the ought to be critically assessed as such. More pointedly, if Western viewers rely 1960s (Jenkins 1975), a time period also marked by industrial expansion. What on these images to understand China, what have they learned? Do these images is interesting, artistically, about his oeuvre are the deeply embedded tensions help Westerners to understand the complicated and contingent negotiations of that arise between the apparent neutrality and the underlying Romantic attitude life chances in the myriad of tremendous social changes in China, or do they – widely embraced by the environmental movement – that informs his choice of simply fill a Western viewer’s field of vision with transfixed differences? subject matter – large-scale human incursions into the natural landscape – and Nemiroff: I think Chen’s points are well-taken: Burtynsky’s photographs do hover communicates the sense that a crucial balance between humankind and nature between art and documentary, drawing from both traditions, and China offered is in jeopardy at this time. This larger theme, which has a temporal dimension as Burtynsky industry on a scale that suited his artistic vision as well as his journal- well, gives his photographs their sublime and ultimately inhuman aspect. istic intent. Its cities bristle with recently erected skyscrapers; its manufacturing facilities teem with rows of brightly clad workers. His Three Gorges Dam photographs are a systematic and comprehensive document of the lengths to which Conclusion the Chinese are prepared to go to sweep away the old to make way for the new. Edward Burtynsky’s photographs have played a significant role in shaping popu- Beyond the documentary, the China photographs are a powerful artistic expres- lar Western understandings of human-environment relations in contemporary sion of the monumental changes he encountered. Through long vistas, framed China. This paper offers a multidisciplinary response to five such photographs. from a central vantage point, the frequent use of a raised point of view that Although far from comprehensive, we offered insights into questions of - encompasses vast tracts of land and dwarfs individual figures, and an empha social justice, environmental sustainability, global relations of political and eco- sis on scale combined with an equal insistence on detail, he has captured the nomic power, and evolving (but historically embedded) Western perceptions of energy of this rising global power in images whose visual richness and power Chinese modernity that arise in our multidisciplinary ‘readings’ of Burtynsky’s can be compared with the similarly ambitious historical paintings of the past. work. Three themes of particular salience were discussed: First, we cautioned In the history of documentary photography, a small number of activists, Western viewers against the process of Othering in contemplating Chinese such as the American Lewis Hine (1874-1940), who fought against child labour, development. Second, we sought to demonstrate interconnectedness between used their cameras as a tool for social reform. Images of massed workers on the Canada and China (for example, economically, through Canadian involvement streets, or of individual workers inside the factory, were commonplace in photo- in the Three Gorges Dam project, and ecologically, through our continued mutual graphs used for pro-labour posters in the inter-war period in the former Soviet reliance on coal). Third, we argued that Burtynsky’s work – especially his China Union and Europe. Reform-minded photographers working for the WPA (Works photographs – could be understood not just as art and documentary, but also as Progress Administration) in the United States also documented the plight of the activism. unemployed during the Great Depression with similar images (Curtis 1984, Stott Throughout the paper, we attempted to convey the discursive richness of 1986, Tupitsyn 1996, Willett 1978). Burtynsky’s photographs of the manufactur- Burtynsky’s China photographs. As extensive and comprehensive as this body ing sector appear devoid of such activist agendas. The conditions of modernity of work is, photographs remain inevitably partial and fragmented representa- – here, the ideals of progress and efficiency – are his subjects in these images. tions that, of necessity, omit much that would help a viewer to fully understand They inform us about the nature of mass-production, the organization of labour in what China’s industrial expansion means, both to the Chinese and to the rest - the factory, and draw our attention to clean, modern, well-lit facilities, which con of the world. Through his arresting images, as well as the statistical information trast with the derelict structures and rusting heavy equipment in his Old Industry on his website about the extent of the transformations that have taken place in photographs. In addition, the formal composition of the photographs, all taken China, Burtynsky has attempted to provide some of the missing details. In so from a certain distance essential to translate the huge scale of the establish- doing, his images raise as many questions as they provide answers. Indeed, ments, precludes real contact with the workers, and suggests a neutral gaze. It any photograph should be viewed as a document that requires temporal, spatial, is a way of seeing and representing the factories and their workers that can be and cultural context in order to more fully and transparently communicate its usefully contrasted with a close-up photo that has circulated on the Internet – of meanings. Yet such transparency is both unattainable, at best (especially since a Chinese worker smiling and making the peace sign, which her fellow worker

© Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. © Copyright Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies/revue d’études interdisciplinaires. 92 Environments 37(2) P. Ballamingie, X. Chen, E. Henry and D. Nemiroff 93 understanding is necessarily incomplete) and inappropriate, at worst. Burtyn- November/ December: 17-31. sky’s China photographs generate a multiplicity of meanings, thus problematiz- Chen, X., and C. L. W. Chan. 1997. Rural Migrants into the Cities of China: From ing truth claims typically associated with a photograph (without disrespecting starvation to under-class. Journal of International and Comparative Social the photographer’s intentions). Each of our unique subject positions influenced Welfare VIII: 106-123. our individual readings, although without doubt sympathies emerged around the Curtis, V. P. and S. Mallach. 1984. Photography and Reform: Lewis Hine and the themes identified above. The approach taken in this paper emphasizes not only National Child Labor Committee. Milwaukee: The Museum. the importance of discourse in reading visual artifacts, but also highlights the DeLuca, K. 1999. In the Shadow of Whiteness: The consequences of construc- environmental conundrums that all nations face. Our responses to the photo- tions of nature in environmental politics. In Whiteness: The communication graphs reveal at least as much about ourselves – our hopes and fears for our of social identity, edited by T. Nakayama and J. N. Martin, 217-246. Thou- environment and our economies, for example – as they do about China. sand Oaks, CA: Sage. Duara, P. 2003. Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Acknowledgements modern. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. We gratefully acknowledge permission from Edward Burtynsky – through Nicho- Edwards, E. 2002. 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