Edward Burtynsky

Troubled Water

Without water, we die. (...) When you affect its natural course, there are always winners and losers.
From the moment that water cannot take its own path
to the sea or be absorbed by the soil,
we change the landscape.
Edward Burtynsky

MBAL is delighted to present the exhibition Troubled Waters by renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky (Canada, 1955), which explores in an immersive way the multiple uses of water by humans. Alarmingly, water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource. With his fascinating and frightening aerial shots, the artist reveals what is at stake. Travelling across the five continents, from the Gulf of Mexico to the banks of the Ganges, Burtynsky confronts us with the global scandal of water pollution, the consequence of human irresponsibility.

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The artists exhibited show different concerns related to the theme of water,

using various techniques and artistic methods to relate the negative

effects of human intervention on our fragile ecosystem.

At a time when no one was aware of the future of our planet, the painter

from Neuchâtel Lermite, exhibited on the 3rd floor, was interested in the

vital and inseparable relationship between water and human beings.

The ambiguity of feelings evoked by the images of the renowned photographer

Edward Burtynsky, at once sublime and frightening, is explored

on the 1st and 2nd floors, with the exhibition Eaux Troublées (Troubled

Waters). His monumental, aerial photographs depict the effects of human

behavior on the landscape as we constantly seek to control and exploit it.

By offering an unusual view, the artist presents us with the current state of

our world.

On the other hand, Ignacio Acosta’s video work Inverting the Monolith,

presented on the ground floor, focuses on environmental activism and the

fundamental role of local activist communities in the fight against the exploitation

of mineral resources in Chile’s subsoil.

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