FINANCIAL TIMES: Photographer Lisa Barnard’s personal journey through the world of gold

Description

 “Electronic waste is one of the fastest-growing sources of rubbish in the world. These discarded devices can be highly toxic, containing lead and mercury. But something else is embedded in the tangle of circuitry from computers, televisions, cameras and phones: gold. That precious metal is a fascination of Lisa Barnard’s, the British photographic artist. For her new work, The Canary and the Hammer, she spent four years travelling across four continents, photographing artisan gold recyclers in China, gold miners in California, gold sorters in Peru and workers at a gold nanoparticle lab in the UK. Gold does not just reflect the mood of the global economy, Barnard says — it is “a potent symbol of ultimate value, beauty, purity, greed and political power…….”

 

Anjli Raval  
Senior Energy Correspondent