Edward Burtynsky’s African Studies

I’ve long been a fan of Edward Burtynsky’s photographic surveys of humanity’s impact on our environment, so I was eager to explore his newest project, African Studies.

In Edward Burtynsky’s recent photographs, produced across the African continent, the patterns and scars of human-altered landscapes initially appear to form an abstract painterly language; they reference the sublime and often surreal qualities of human mark-making. While chronicling the major themes of terraforming and extraction, urbanization and deforestation, African Studies conveys the unsettling reality of sweeping resource depletion on both a human and industrial scale.

You can check out more photos from the series here and here as well as in his forthcoming book (Amazon). (via colossal)

• Africa
• Edward Burtynsky
• photography