Wan Zhou #2, Three Gorges Dam Project, Yangtze River, China, 2002

Before Burtynsky travels to a new place, he reads widely; everything from maps and government surveys to economic reports and meteorological data.1 He was compelled to photograph industrial sites in China as a result of learning about the country’s explosive industrialization in the wake of economic reforms implemented between 1978 and 1989. The building of the Three Gorges Dam has become a symbol of this growth. By 2010, China had become the world’s largest manufacturing economy, surpassing the United States. Hydroelectricity is now a cornerstone of the country’s energy infrastructure, ushering in the development of other large dams.

Burtynsky records a mere fragment of the country’s transformation. Wan Zhou #2 shows a small, dismembered corner of the city—its walls partially demolished, its volumes wrecked, with loose masonry and rubble strewn about. These are not the ruins of art history, familiar since the Renaissance. They are contemporary and utilitarian, captured in the moment before they vanish underwater. The picture evinces neither melancholy, nor idealization—just a quiet, factual record of destruction and loss. Because of Burtynsky’s matter-of-fact treatment, it’s one of the understated images in the China project, but also among the more poignant. Unusually for the artist, atmospheric perspective and depth of field are exploited to the full here, probably because they were unavoidable. The humidity-borne dust of the apocalyptic region creates the sfumato, or smoky effect in the background, a rarity in his work.