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except for the last five minutes where people talk about, ‘Here’s
what we can do to change things.’ And I just think that method
of discourse or inquiry has left people behind.” De Pencier calls
Anthropocene’s style “non-didactic” and says the film’s lush visuals
are intended to seduce the viewer “but hopefully seduced to have an
increased consciousness of an issue or a place or a topic that maybe
isn’t front of mind or that maybe you haven’t experienced before.”
Burtynsky says the purpose of the film is to create simple aware-
ness: “It’s too easy to say this is wrong or this is right,” he says, “This
is what it is. We need to all understand we’re having this impact. We
are managers of this whole planet.”
He adds, the word anthropocene itself is neutral. “It isn’t neces-
sarily saying this is the end of the world. It could be a good anthro-
pocene if we can figure it out.”WALL CARVINGS
The underground
Uralkali potash mine
in Berezniki, Russia.
Potash is used for
fertilizer and in a number
of industrial processes.
The spiral patterns
are made by the large
machines that dig it out.
FATE OF THE FOREST
Logs arriving at a
sawmill in the Makoko
section of Lagos, Nigeria.
Trees are harvested in
the country’s interior,
which is being rapidly
deforested, and then
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mills and markets.Ơ Photos © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery
and Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, New York/Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco