to these places, 00:00:07.240 --> 00:00:11.880 position:80% these very surreal and unfamiliar worlds that exist

to be able to create the conditions

that we call contemporary life.

I travel the world,

and have been travelling the world for over 40 years, 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:27.760 position:83% looking at how we as humans are reshaping our planet, 00:00:27.760 --> 00:00:31.080 position:69% extractive industries like mining, quarries,

deforestation, 00:00:32.920 --> 00:00:35.000 position:73% and trying to capture them within single frames

and also now within motion picture 00:00:37.800 --> 00:00:41.000 position:75% to try to tell the story about how we as humans,

the dominant species of the planet,

are reshaping the planet.

Concrete's not found in nature, 00:00:57.542 --> 00:00:59.462 position:61% but it's the number one 'technofossil'.

It's the number one thing that we're leaving behind

that future civilisation can find. 00:01:04.720 --> 00:01:08.160 position:77% They would say: 'Aha, we are in the anthropocene,

the period of humans.' 00:01:10.240 --> 00:01:13.200 position:63% Plastics is another thing that we create

that nature does not create. 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:16.240 position:64% But we've also done positive stories like 00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:19.360 position:64% I did a whole shoot on some of the purest 00:01:19.417 --> 00:01:22.377 position:69% and most biodiverse coral in the whole world

off of Komodo Island in Indonesia, 00:01:24.880 --> 00:01:28.800 position:98% [we] also looked at some of the diversity in the forests in Canada.

Then there were the tusks of ten thousand elephants

that were burned on one day

to send a signal to poachers.

What I think art can do is say: 00:01:37.440 --> 00:01:40.440 position:72% 'Look, here it is, this is what it looks like.

We're all part of this landscape. 00:01:41.200 --> 00:01:45.760 position:78% We all partake of the things from this landscape.'

And a lot of times people say: 00:01:47.560 --> 00:01:50.680 position:98% 'Why are you showing these disasters in such an aesthetic way?' 00:01:50.680 --> 00:01:52.840 position:63% And I'm saying: 'These aren't disasters,

This is business as usual.' 00:01:55.640 --> 00:01:58.640 position:61% This is the world that we have created,

that so far we need to provide 00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:03.680 position:92% for the number of people that are here on the planet today.

In the eighties when I started it,

I think a lot of people were wondering, you know,

why, and what is it that I'm doing, 00:02:10.040 --> 00:02:13.160 position:75% and why am I treating this as a subject for art?

But now, in the last decade,

the conversation has stepped up. 00:02:17.240 --> 00:02:20.000 position:94% As we start seeing more and more evidence of climate change, 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:22.400 position:64% more and more people are recognising that 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:27.280 position:95% this is something that is being brought on by human activity. 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:29.480 position:63% I do believe that people are getting it. 00:02:29.480 --> 00:02:34.200 position:80% My hope is that as people become far more aware and

start changing their own behaviour 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:39.480 position:80% so will go governments and so will go corporations.

I don't see myself as an environmentalist per se, 00:02:43.960 --> 00:02:46.920 position:70% I've never taken a course on the environment,

I didn't study it at school. 00:02:49.720 --> 00:02:52.720 position:58% I'd rather see the images that I make 00:02:52.720 --> 00:02:56.960 position:94% as points of departure for a more complex conversation about 00:02:56.960 --> 00:02:59.960 position:59% so now that we're here, what do we do? 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:03.280 position:73% It's a different way to engage with the problem 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:06.280 position:86% without saying, you know, 'you're good and you're bad'. 00:03:06.280 --> 00:03:09.600 position:69% But it's like: 'We're all in this together.'