News

BERKELEY — The forum “A Just Transition: From Refineries to Renewables” at the David Brower Center on Tuesday will discuss the impact of industry, in particular petroleum refineries, on the social environment. The Sunflower Alliance is co-presenter. The forum is being held in conjunction with an exhibit by photographer Edward Burtynsky, whose work focuses on the…

Edward Burtynsky isn’t your typical nature photographer: His works, often beautiful, also are arresting, functioning as a warning for humans to understand their drastically damaging effects on the environment. His dramatic images are on view at Berkeley’s David Brower Center in “Art/Act: Edward Burtynsky,” a show coinciding with the center’s seventh annual Art/Act Award, which…

In a particular strip from Bill Watterson’s beloved “Calvin and Hobbes” collection, Calvin screams, “I’m significant!” to a sky full of stars. Calvin then underhandedly notes, “Says the insignificant speck of dust.” Innocently yet critically, the cartoon juxtaposes the ridiculous human impulse toward self-importance with the vastness of the universe. Much like Watterson, Edward Burtynsky…

‘We are drawn by desire — a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success.’ A new exhibition at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, California highlights the pivotal work of Edward Burtynsky, a Canadian photographer who has spent three decades focusing his lens…

Edward Burtynsky is a Canadian photographer obsessed with the way humanity molds the environment, mostly for the worse. Inspired by early memories of a General Motors plant transforming his hometown of St. Catharines, he’s journeyed the world documenting unnatural interventions in the terrain, from sprawling oil fields in California to uranium tailing ponds in Ontario to China’s immensely disruptive Three Gorges…

Californians suffering drought fatigue will find their environmental energy replenished viewing the searing imagery of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. Presented by the David Brower Center, the seventh annual Art/Act Award and Exhibition opening Sept. 18 unleashes a torrent of events, including selected work from Burtynsky’s extensive portfolio, along with public lectures, concerts, a half-day conference…

Edward Burtynsky, the globe-roving Canadian photographer whose big aerial pictures of man-altered natural landscapes are seductively beautiful and strangely disturbing, spent a dozen years on and off making the images for his 2009 book “Oil,” which took him from the oil sands of Alberta to the Azerbaijani oil fields to the crazy cloverleaf freeways of…

“Welcome to Ohlone territory! We are still here, and we are still on our lands where we have always been,” said Ann Marie Sayers, Mutsun Ohlone, director of Costanoan Indian Research, in her opening remarks at theResilience of Sacred Places: Defining Security—dialogues held over two evenings in July 2015 on the connection between sacred sites…

We spent a great Saturday wandering about downtown Berkeley at the Bay Area Book Festival, which was crowded with book-lovers of all shapes and  ages … but it must be said, especially at the panels we attended, more women than men.  Guys, it is clear, from the folks staffing the booths, you are  publishing and…

After a series of executive directors left the David Brower Center in quick succession, staff and board members at the organization couldn’t bear to conduct yet another hiring search. So they devised a unique solution: flatten the leadership hierarchy and appoint four current employees as co-managers. “We were really excited to be doing something innovative…