As a photographer, Edward Burtynsky captures the large-scale consequences of the global economy like no one else. His work, which is epic in scale and relentless in imagery, is not larger than life, but large as, showing the true impact of his subject. In his latest exhibition, he takes on one of the greatest environmental threats of the century: Oil.

Images of broken down ships in Bangladesh, tires spilling in mountainous heaps in California, pipelines and highways weaving through Alberta and L.A., this is how Burtynsky interprets his subject, showing the effects of Oil in its many incarnations. Anyone who’s driven past the ghostly spectre of a refinery in the dead of night in Texas or seen a line of transport trucks idling outside a massive filling station knows that the shape of the problem goes farther than the tar sands and the oil spills, it infiltrates almost every aspect of North American life. Go see this exhibition, on until July 3rd the the ROM, and open your eyes to Oil.

~Haley Cullingham