Monday, 21 April 2014

Exhibition Responses:

         The I.H Bloggers went to the Vancouver Art Gallery a few weeks ago and had the pleasure of seeing two great photography exhibitions. The first was Edward Burtynsky's 'A Terrible Beauty'  which is a collection of large photographs of natural and man-made landscapes that show us the enormous reach of human companies, projects and industries like tailing ponds, dams, factories, refineries, recycling dumps and the impact these places have on our environment. The photographs at first glance look like beautiful paintings but when you get up close and read deeper into them, they reveal the truth about how humans destroy and misuse our natural resources. 
      The second Exhibition is a group show titled 'Out of Sight, New Acquisitions' that focuses on how we perceive and represent what we see in our everyday encounters, for e.g : the movement of the body, a drip of milk into a cup, a bullet passing through a banana ...etc.
           The photography and blogging class were asked to make a photographic response to the ideas, concepts and emotions they felt and saw during both of these exhibitions. These are the projects they came up with.....
You Can't Eat Money
"When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, 
the last Fish Eaten, and the Last stream Poisoned, 
You will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money"
 -First nations proverb


  This project is a photographic response to Ed Burtynsky's 'A Terrible Beauty'. Burtynsky's picture shows the destruction of nature by people, oil spills and industrial disasters. I thought 'Terrible Beauty' has been expressed from the greed of people and eventually they move toward the money. In capitalist society, The worst thing is that people see nature only as a means to make money. 
 But if people destroy all of nature to make money, can you imagine the world without nature? If we don't have any nature then can you eat Money? Obviously you cannot. You might have in great abundance the money obtained by destroying nature. What will you be able to buy when you have destroyed nature?You cannot expect fresh food and water because it won't be natural anymore. However, you will be able to taste the only chemical unknown material that is artificially created by money!I think that we need to wake up and make sure there is no excessive greed other than what is necessary.
                      By Woo Youn Hwang


The Terrible Beauty of Water

    These photographs are a Photographic response to Ed Burtynsky’s  “A Terrible Beauty”, who used a camera to look at this world and tell information from human's great achievements and calamities. this would be very difficult to discover if Ed Burtynsky or someone else didn't use his camera. But I want to try a different mode, that uses a camera to look around at the small picture of my world, that also was different to find. This project that is part of my Water series I took photos in different weather conditions by smart phone. These images of water exist every where, old bucket, drain full of garbage, used balcony, drying ditch flowing with water that looks animated. 
When you see the balcony puddle, that reflects the sky and smells of nature, it can help you to forget annoyances; After rainy old bucket adhere moss and full in water, then breeze blow on water to create a wave, this view would catch your eyes and you would feeling time walking very slow and image anything I can do, in this time; The garbage wash by rainwater in drain, this time you can see through the gap to feel other small worlds full of live, if you see before they are full of garbage you won't believe it was the same drain. 
  Water symbolizes everything, also it's good or evil. The evil, like humans, destroy everything. Then they will become beyond redemption, but always there will remain a tiny opportunity, if you stop it now, then try to fix and keep it, one day, the beauty of world will come again.
By Roger Chen



The Beauty of Ink
glass/water/ blue ink
glass/water/blue ink
glass/water/wine
I would like to remind people.Sometimes we look at  something  beautiful  but pollution happens at the same time.it likes the blue ink presents in the water. To pour wine in the water . It  presented the strong contrast to present the serious water pollution.Why I used blue ink and wine and water to preset this topic , because the material is easy to get and use.
    Pure water is an important resource for life. It is polluted and wasted easily. Everyone has a  responsibility to protect our environment and save water. You must be careful when you use water , if you see someone pollute water you have to do something for it to protect our environment.
By Joshua Hung



Recycling at International House.


  This week, we visited Ed Burtynsky's “A Terrible Beauty” in the Vancouver Art Gallery. There were many amazing pictures, but there were terrible things which they told about humans destroying the earth. It made you feel strong and scared.
   I always see a lot of students, they throw away everything in garbage bin, but they don’t recycle it. You can see it’s terrible in garbage bin. I took pictures of garbage bins in I.H. Because you could see bottles, papers and food. There are many recycle boxes in the school, but nobody uses it. Sometimes, teachers tell students to recycle which will be better for the world.
  I want to tell everyone to focus on recycling, don’t forget do it, when we throw things in the garbage. It’s really important.  We don’t want to damage the environment, so we need to protect it. I believe the world can be great.
By Calvin Lai 

1 comment:

  1. Oh those were pretty cool!!!!!! I like this topic and all of your creativity!!!!

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