Photography, the Environment and Social Responsibility

• In Event: The Arts and Environmental Advocacy: Imagination, Responsibility and Utility

Abstract

This presentation will look at the tensions between environment, advocacy and aesthetics through the work of five photographers: Edward Burtynsky, John Pfahl, Mayasumi Hyashi, Ruth Dusseault and Camille Seaman. While Burtynsky's career spans 25 years focused on a variety of environmentally charged issues, this presentation will briefly explore his Shipbreaking series made in Bangladesh several years ago. John Pfahl's Smoke series deals with the atmospheric pollution of industry in upstate New York in the late 1980s. Mayasumi Hayashi looked at superfund cleanup sites also in the 1980s, and Ruth Dusseault spent five years, beginning in 1999, documenting the final days of a steel mill, the dismantling and environmental cleanup of the site and its redevelopment into a mixed use housing and retail center. Camille Seaman has produced a body of work that explores the melting of icebergs at both the North and South Poles. While all of these works deal with significant environmental issues they are also beautiful pieces of art. This presentation offers a starting point to explore the tension created when the aesthetic beauty of the image collides with its problematical environmental and social content. Does the beauty get in the way of effectively communicating the environmental and social content or does it facilitate it?

Author

• Howard Bossen, Michigan State University