| Maker(s): | Burtynsky, Edward
| | Culture: | Canadian (1955-)
| | Title: | Silver Lake Operations #2, Lake Lefroy, Western Australia, Australia
| | Date Made: | 2007, print 2016
| | Type: | Photograph
| | Materials: | Digital chromogenic color print from a 39 megapixel digital capture
| | Measurements: | Frame: 50 x 62 x 1 5/8 in; 127 x 157.5 x 4.1 cm; Mount: 48 x 60 x 1/8 in; 121.9 x 152.4 x .3 cm; Sheet: 48 x 60 in; 121.9 x 152.4 cm
| | Narrative Inscription: | SIGNATURE/MONOGRAM: verso, lwr. r. (ink on object label): EB | EB (stylized initials created in a circle) ; TITLE/EDITION/MEDIA/DATE/SIZE/ARTIST'S NAME: verso, lwr. r. (printed on adhesive object label): Title: SIlver Lake Operations #2, Lake Lefroy, Western Australia, Australia, 2007 6/6 | Original: 39 Megapixel Digital Capture | Printed: 2016 Digital Chromogenic Colour Print | Image Size: 48 x 60 inches on 48 x 60 inch substrate | Artists: Edward Burtynsky:
| | Accession Number: | UM 2023.9
| | Credit Line: | Gift courtesy of Edward Burtynsky, and Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto, Canada
| | Museum Collection: | University Museum of Contemporary Art at UMASS Amherst
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Description:
Aerial view of a rural open-pit gold mine surrounded by fields, roads and piles of earth. Tiny trucks, buildings, and plants can be seen as well.
Label Text:
Label text from the exhibition (OFF)BALANCE: Art in the Age of Human Impact, March 27-May 9, 2025:
This photograph presents a detailed aerial view of the Lake Lefory gold and nickel mine located in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. At first glance, the scale of the photograph tempts us to focus our attention on the astonishing bird’s-eye view of the resource-rich land, but a closer look reveals the irrevocable impact that resource exploitation has had on the environment.
Burtynsky states, “These landscapes tell us about the scale of human need and the lasting result of that ambition. If the human experience can be considered a manifestation of dreams and desires, mines can be thought of as the source for the raw materials of those dreams such as cars, airplanes, televisions, houses, jewelry and the endless number of goods which we expect to have.” This photograph was included in the exhibition and book titled Australian Minescapes by Edward Burtynsky and commissioned by the Foto Freo Festival in Fremantle, Australia in 2008. - Adeyemi Adebayo, Candidate MFA Studio Arts
Artist's Statement regarding Mines
"If the human experience can be considered a manifestation of dreams, and desires, mines can be thought of as the source for the raw material of that experience. On one level of understanding, that mineral-rich ore is manufactured into the objects of our collective desire: the automobiles we drive, televisions we watch, jets that fly us around the globe, houses that provide us with shelter and comfort, and an endless stream of gadgets and goods. If gold, silver and diamonds are the greatest valuables we bestow upon each other, to honour great citizens and profess our love, then are not the great voids we leave in that residual landscape a lasting testament to these ambitions?
The imagery I derive from these landscapes therefore becomes symbolic. What this civilization leaves in the wake of its progress may be the opened and emptied earth, but in performing these incursions we also participate in the unwitting creation of gigantic monuments to our way of life." – Edward Burtynsky
In Burtynsky's images, it is the insatiable human appetite for the world's raw materials that is of primary interest. The tools of manufacturing are sometimes included, but they often function simply as a measure of the immense scale of the scene before us.
AUSTRALIA
What is at first glance merely a scarred landscape becomes poetic evidence of resources spent, nature transformed as well as realized―or failed―hopes and dreams. The aerial images of the Silver Lake Operations at Lake Lefroy and of the pits and tailings at Kalgoorlie, along with the Dampier Salt Ponds are among the most handsome that Burtynsky has ever made. They combine a kind of mapping with a keenly felt experience of all the hard rock grit, dust and labour transforming these arid lands.
Tags:
landscapes; rural; mining; environmentalism; winter; snow; documentary photography Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=UM+2023.9 |
