Footprints of ruin
Edward Burtynsky has been organising a print sale for Ukraine: editions of two large-format photographs, which raise nearly $600,000 in a matter of hours. This is personal. Burtynsky grew up on the shoreline of Lake Ontario but his parents emigrated from Ukraine in the late 1940s.
His mother fled starvation under the Soviets, before being forced into a labour camp by the Nazis. Now 97, she has been watching the news obsessively. Burtynsky’s sister has been fielding texts from relatives in and around Kyiv, with an eye to getting them to Canada if necessary.
“It’s kind of surreal,” says the artist, his voice flat. “They’re frightened, they’re hearing bombs all the time. It feels very real, you know?” They’re OK? “Currently.”
He should have been making photographs in Ukraine last year, he adds; a project exploring the country’s industrial history and his own roots. Perhaps
