Images of China's Industrialization by Edward Burtynsky

The Globalist PhotoGallery

Images of China's Industrialization

Photographs by Edward Burtynsky.

Published by Steidl Publishing.

Order this book

Enter gallery

China
by Edward Burtynsky

In 1958, China’s leader Mao Zedong transformed China with his Great Leap Forward initiative — a campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party to use mass cheap labor to create steel mills and rapidly industrialize the nation.

Today, China’s steel industry is again rapidly changing and companies like Shanghai Baosteel Group are booming across the country — while the political, societal, cultural and environmental consequences remain unknown.

China appears to be on the cusp of becoming one of the world’s most dominant and influential nations. Canadian-born photographer Edward Burtynsky journeys to the places that are allowing China to chart this course.

Hauntingly similar

In his collection, simply entitled “China,” Burtynsky offers no apologies for his silent observation of China as a nation thriving off of its own cheap mass labor and low-cost manufacturing. Instead, he seeks to capture a more surreal interpretation.

The collection’s subtitles explain his intentions more clearly — the headlines "Three Gorges Dam," "Old Industry," "Steel and Coal," "Shipyards," "Recycling," "Manufacturing" and "Urban Renewal" separate and divide the photographs.

These chapters differentiate sets of images that are hauntingly similar and undistinguishable. Steel, crumpled buildings and identical rows of uniformed workers become the main components of nearly every image.

An endless stream of color

His wide-angled photographs offer a fascinating, yet unsettling evaluation. There is a jarring quality to his series on Chinese workers. They work side by side in national and foreign factories. They are unidentifiable.

The photograph of workers at the Deda Chicken Processing Plant in Dehui City in the Jilin Province appears as an endless sea of workers donned in light pink uniforms, white rubber knee-high boots, blue aprons and white masks.

They stand evenly apart, their heads downward, their eyes concentrating on the red trays filled with chickens parts. The next photograph shows a seemingly infinite row of bright yellow buildings. In the middle, Chinese workers stand in rows. The bright yellow of their jackets leave them without a personality.

An eerie sense of uniformity

Although all factories are filled with endless lines of workers, the oddity of this collection is that the rows never come to an end. The bright colors of the workers continue to span into the distance.

But beyond this eerie sense of uniformity, Mr. Burtynsky showcases a China on the verge of greatness. His work on the Three Gorges Dam showcases the inner workings of the nation's most ambitious and formidable project. It a source of national pride — and international and domestic criticism.

It is a prospect that is both promising and disheartening — and like that prospect, Mr. Burtynsky’s collection flirts between celebration and disapproval of China's future.

Presented by Christina Erb.

About Edward Burtynsky

Photographer Edward Burtynsky produces large-scale, richly-colored prints and is well-known for his documentation of industrial sites across Canada, the United States, Europe and China. Mr. Burtynsky earned a B.A. in Photography and Media Studies from Ryerson Polytechnic Institute.

Mr. Burtynsky founded and directs Toronto Image Works, a darkroom rental facility, custom photographic, digital imaging lab and gallery. In 2004, he won the Roloff Beny Photography Book Award for his self-published book "Before the Flood, about China's Three Gorges Dam project."

Deda Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin Province, 2005.

Youngor Textiles, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, 2005.

Factory Worker Dormitory, Dongguan, Guangdong Province, 2005.

Cutter, Fengjiang, Zhejiang Province, 2004.

Three Gorges Dam Project, Yangtze River, 2005.

Bird Mobile, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, 2005.

Let us know what you think ...

You must be a registered user of our site to send us your comments. If you have already registered, please log in. If you a new user of our site, please register now. Registration is quick, easy and completely free.

Complete the below to send a letter to the editor about this article.

Name

Email Address

City and State

Country

Comments

Please note: If we publish your comment on The Globalist, we will identify only your name, city and country. We do not publish anonymous comments. Your email address will not be published.

We regret that we cannot publish every comment we receive. Furthermore, because we review each comment before it is published, there may be a delay between the time you send your comment and its appearance on our site. The Globalist reserves the right to edit comments for style and length.


	Copyright © 2000-2010 by The Globalist. Reproduction of content on this site without The Globalist's written permission is strictly prohibited. Terms of Use \| Privacy Policy The Globalist claims full trademark rights to The Globalist name and logos. McPherson Square, 927 15th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20005