Manufactured Landscapes

A nice follow on from the last post: this is a feature length documentary by Jennifer Baichwal about the photographer Edward Burtynsky. He takes stunning photographs of landscapes which have been drastically altered by human activity- think open mines, endless factrories and ship breaking beaches.

It's powerful and beautiful stuff but also very open ended. As Burtynsky himself points out- he doesn't take a 'this is bad' political stand point- but lets people see what they want to see. There's an obvious sustainability and 'aren't we fucking up the planet' message that can be read but also there's a whole look at human progress and our advancement in conquering nature or something.

Interesting film, more a piece of journalism than a pointed 'An Inconvenient Truth' thing but well worth watching.

Mastercrafts: Green Wood Craft

Amazing and inspiring documentary about wood work- really makes you want to run away into a forest and do some bodging. They talk about how in the modern world we are too disconnected from all the material sourcing and making processes and that with creating your own tools and objects (from lathes to kitchen spatulas to decorative chairs) comes a real freedom. The stuff they make is ridiculously strong and durable and when one guy talks about how he's spent 60 hours crafting a chair you get a real idea of the value imbued in that object.

Taking this topic somewhere else: I feel that if more of the stuff and objects we owned were either made by us- or had some kind of time and value invested into them by us, then that would be good thing. Possessions with a narrative attached to them- 'I found this thing here' or 'I restored this' or 'I made this'- seem to be more special and used with a greater joy than some white goods cracked out from China or something. (I think most people have a few things like this- for myself it's the chair that I found in the street, the table I made, the bike my brother restored for me, and the cafetiere that I discovered down Deptford Market.)

I'd like to figure out ways of getting some of the essence of the show mentioned into my life in London. Suggestions very much welcomed.