ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Edward Burtynsky - Photographer
2005 TED Prize winner Edward Burtynsky has made it his life's work to document humanity's impact on the planet. His riveting photographs, as beautiful as they are horrifying, capture views of the Earth altered by mankind.

Why you should listen

To describe Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky's work in a single adjective, you have to speak French: jolie-laide. His images of scarred landscapes -- from mountains of tires to rivers of bright orange waste from a nickel mine -- are eerily pretty yet ugly at the same time. Burtynsky's large-format color photographs explore the impact of humanity's expanding footprint and the substantial ways in which we're reshaping the surface of the planet. His images powerfully alter the way we think about the world and our place in it.

With his blessing and encouragement, WorldChanging.com and others use his work to inspire ongoing global conversations about sustainable living. Burtynsky's photographs are included in the collections of over 50 museums around the world, including the Tate, London and the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York City. A large-format book, 2003's Manufactured Landscapes, collected his work, and in 2007, a documentary based on his photography, also called Manufactured Landscapes, debuted at the Toronto Film Festival before going on to screen at Sundance and elsewhere. It was released on DVD in March 2007. In 2008, after giving a talk at the Long Now Foundation, Burtynsky proposed "The 10,000 Year Gallery," which could house art to be curated over thousands of years preserved through carbon transfers in an effort to reflect the attitudes and changes of the world over time. 

When Burtynsky accepted his 2005 TED Prize, he made three wishes. One of his wishes: to build a website that will help kids think about going green. Thanks to WGBH and the TED community, the show and site Meet the Greens debuted at TED2007. His second wish: to begin work on an Imax film, which morphed into the jaw-dropping film Manufactured Landscapes with Jennifer Baichwal. And his third wish, wider in scope, was simply to encourage "a massive and productive worldwide conversation about sustainable living." Thanks to his help and the input of the TED community, the site WorldChanging.com got an infusion of energy that has helped it to grow into a leading voice in the sustainability community.

In 2016, he won a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for his work.

More profile about the speaker
Edward Burtynsky | Speaker | TED.com
TEDGlobal 2009

Edward Burtynsky: Photographing the landscape of oil

Edward Burtynsky fotografonë pamjen e naftës

Filmed:
550,970 views

Në formate të fotografive të mëdha, Edward Burtynsky ndjek rrugen e naftës nepërmjet shoqëris moderne, nga ajo e mirë deri tek lidhja në motor -- dhe pastaj përtej pikës së projektimit.
- Photographer
2005 TED Prize winner Edward Burtynsky has made it his life's work to document humanity's impact on the planet. His riveting photographs, as beautiful as they are horrifying, capture views of the Earth altered by mankind. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:15
I started my journey 30 years ago.
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Fillova rrugëtimin timë para 30 viteve.
00:18
And I worked in mines. And I realized that
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Dhe unë punova në minjera. Dhe e kuptova
00:20
this was a world unseen.
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se kjo ishte botë e paparë.
00:22
And I wanted, through color and large format cameras
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Dhe unë dëshiroja, që nepërmjet formatit të kamerave me ngjyra dhe të mëdha
00:24
and very large prints,
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dhe printerve tepër të mëdha,
00:26
to make a body of work that somehow
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për ta berë një trup pune i cili disi
00:28
became symbols of our
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të bëhet simbolë për përdorimin e
00:31
use of the landscape,
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hapësiers sonë,
00:33
how we use the land.
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si mund ta përdorim token.
00:35
And to me this was
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dhe për mua kjo ishte
00:37
a key component that somehow, through this medium of photography,
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një qelës kyqë që disia, nepërmjet mediumeve të fotografive,
00:40
which allows us to contemplate these landscapes,
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të cilat na lejojnë neve që të paraqesim këto hapësira,
00:43
that I thought photography was perfectly suited
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që unë mendova që këto fotografi ishin të përkryera
00:46
to doing this type of work.
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për ta berë këtë lloje pune.
00:48
And after 17 years of photographing large industrial landscapes,
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Dhe pas 17 viteve në industrin e fotografimeve të mëdha të hapësires,
00:52
it occurred to me that
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më erdhi mua që
00:54
oil is underpinning the scale and speed.
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nafta po zevendëson hapësiren dhe shpejtësin.
00:56
Because that is what has changed,
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Sepse kjo është ajo që ka ndryshuar,
00:58
is the speed at which we're taking all our resources.
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është shpejtësia ne të cilen ne po flasim për të gjitha burimet tona.
01:01
And so then I went out to develop a whole series
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Dhe pra kështu unë shkova të zhvilloj një seri komplete
01:03
on the landscape of oil.
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në hapësiren e naftës.
01:05
And what I want to do is to kind of map an arc
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Dhe atë që unë deshiroj të bejë është një lloj hartimi
01:10
that there is extraction, where we're taking it from the ground,
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që është një nxerrje, kur po flasim nga toka,
01:13
refinement. And that's one chapter.
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rafinerimi. Dhe ajo është një kapitull tjetër.
01:15
The other chapter that I wanted to look at was
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Kapitulli tjetër që unë dëshiroja të shiqoj ishte
01:17
how we use it -- our cities,
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se si ne e përdorim atë -- qytetet tona,
01:19
our cars, our motorcultures,
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makinat tona, motokulturat tona,
01:21
where people gather around the vehicle
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kur njerëzit grumbullohen rreth makinave
01:25
as a celebration.
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si një festimë.
01:27
And then the third one is this idea of the end of oil,
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Dhe pastaj e treta është ideja e përfundimit të naftes,
01:29
this entropic end,
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përfundimi i tij,
01:31
where all of our parts of cars, our tires,
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ku të gjitha pjesët e makinave, gomat,
01:34
oil filters,
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filterat e naftes,
01:36
helicopters, planes --
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helikopëteret, avjonet --
01:38
where are the landscapes where all of that stuff ends up?
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kur e gjithë hapësira të gjitha këto gjëra do të përfundojnë?
01:41
And to me, again, photography was
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Dhe për mua, prapë, fotografia ishte
01:43
a way in which I could explore and research the world,
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një menyr në të cilin unë do të eksploroja dhe kërkoja boten,
01:46
and find those places.
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dhe gjeja këto vende.
01:48
And another idea that I had as well,
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Dhe një ide tjetër që isha gjithashtu,
01:50
that was brought forward by an ecologist --
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kjo ishte sjellur mbrapa nga ekologjistët --
01:54
he basically did a calculation where
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ai faktikisht bëri një kalkulim ku
01:57
he took one liter of gas and said,
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ai mori një litër naftë dhe tha,
01:59
well, how much carbon it would take, and how much organic material?
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mirë, sa karbon do të duhej, sa material organikë?
02:03
It was 23 metric tons for one liter.
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Ishte 23 metra tonë për një litër.
02:06
So whenever I fill up my gas,
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Pra kurdoherë që une e mbushi rezervarin tim,
02:08
I think of that liter, and how much carbon.
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Mendoj për atë litër, dhe sa shumë karbonë.
02:10
And I know that oil comes from the ocean and phytoplankton,
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Dhe unë e di që nafta vjen nga oqeani dhe pytoplatonet,
02:13
but he did the calculations for our Earth
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mirpo ai nuk e kalkuloj për token tonë
02:16
and what it had to do to produce that amount of energy.
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dhe atë që unë duhej ta beja është të prodhoj sasin e energjisë.
02:18
From the photosynthetic growth,
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Ngaq një rritje e fotosintezes,
02:20
it would take 500 years of that growth
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do të merrte 500 vite rritje
02:23
to produce what we use, the 30 billion barrels we use per year.
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për të prodhuar atë që ne e përdorim 30 miljardë barela që ne përdorim për një vitë.
02:28
And that also brought me to the fact that
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Dhe ajo gjithashtu më sjelli mua faktin
02:30
this poses such a risk to our society.
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që ky poses aqë i rrezikshem për shoqrin tonë.
02:33
Looking at 30 billion per year,
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Duke e shiquar 30 miljardin për vitë,
02:38
we look at our two largest suppliers,
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ne morem dy furnizuesit me të mëdhaj,
02:40
Saudi Arabia and now Canada, with its dirty oil.
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Arabin Saudite dhe Kanaden, me naften ndryer.
02:42
And together they only form about 15 years of supply.
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Dhe së bashku ato formojnë rreth 15 vite furnizimë.
02:46
The whole world, at 1.2 trillion estimated reserves,
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E gjithë bota, tek një parashiqim prej 1.2 triljonë rezerva,
02:49
only gives us about 45 years.
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na jepë neve vetem 45 vite.
02:51
So, it's not a question of if, but a question of when
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Pra, nuk është një pyetje nese, mirpo kurë do të përfundoi
02:54
peak oil will come upon us.
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për neve.
02:56
So, to me, using photography --
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Pra për mua, duke përdorur fotografinë --
02:58
and I feel that all of us need to now begin to really
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dhe unë e ndjej se të gjithë ne duke të fillojme me të vërtet
03:01
take the task of using our talents,
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të marrim detyren e përdorimit të talentit tonë,
03:03
our ways of thinking,
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menyrat e të menduarit,
03:06
to begin to deal with what I think is probably
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të fillojme të merremi me atë që une mendoj se ndoshta është
03:08
one of the most challenging issues of our time,
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sfita më e madhe e kohes sonë,
03:11
how to deal with our energy crisis.
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se si të merremi me krizat e energjis sonë.
03:13
And I would like to say that, on the other side of it,
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Unë do dëshiroja të them se, nga krahu tjetër,
03:15
30, 40 years from now, the children that I have,
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30, 40 vite nga tani, fëmijet që unë kam,
03:17
I can look at them and say, "We did everything
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Unë mund ti shiqoj ata dhe t'ju them, "Ne bemë gjdogjë
03:19
we possibly, humanly could do,
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që mundësisht, njerëzimi mund të bente,
03:22
to begin to mitigate this,
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për të filluar mishigimin me këtë,
03:25
what I feel is one of the most important and critical
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atë që une e ndjejë që është me e rendësishma dhe kritike
03:27
moments in our time. Thank you.
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momentet në kohen tonë. Faliminderit.
03:30
(Applause)
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(Duartrokitje)
Translated by Liridon Shala
Reviewed by Robert Lokaj

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Edward Burtynsky - Photographer
2005 TED Prize winner Edward Burtynsky has made it his life's work to document humanity's impact on the planet. His riveting photographs, as beautiful as they are horrifying, capture views of the Earth altered by mankind.

Why you should listen

To describe Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky's work in a single adjective, you have to speak French: jolie-laide. His images of scarred landscapes -- from mountains of tires to rivers of bright orange waste from a nickel mine -- are eerily pretty yet ugly at the same time. Burtynsky's large-format color photographs explore the impact of humanity's expanding footprint and the substantial ways in which we're reshaping the surface of the planet. His images powerfully alter the way we think about the world and our place in it.

With his blessing and encouragement, WorldChanging.com and others use his work to inspire ongoing global conversations about sustainable living. Burtynsky's photographs are included in the collections of over 50 museums around the world, including the Tate, London and the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York City. A large-format book, 2003's Manufactured Landscapes, collected his work, and in 2007, a documentary based on his photography, also called Manufactured Landscapes, debuted at the Toronto Film Festival before going on to screen at Sundance and elsewhere. It was released on DVD in March 2007. In 2008, after giving a talk at the Long Now Foundation, Burtynsky proposed "The 10,000 Year Gallery," which could house art to be curated over thousands of years preserved through carbon transfers in an effort to reflect the attitudes and changes of the world over time. 

When Burtynsky accepted his 2005 TED Prize, he made three wishes. One of his wishes: to build a website that will help kids think about going green. Thanks to WGBH and the TED community, the show and site Meet the Greens debuted at TED2007. His second wish: to begin work on an Imax film, which morphed into the jaw-dropping film Manufactured Landscapes with Jennifer Baichwal. And his third wish, wider in scope, was simply to encourage "a massive and productive worldwide conversation about sustainable living." Thanks to his help and the input of the TED community, the site WorldChanging.com got an infusion of energy that has helped it to grow into a leading voice in the sustainability community.

In 2016, he won a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for his work.

More profile about the speaker
Edward Burtynsky | Speaker | TED.com
THE ORIGINAL VIDEO ON TED.COM

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