Patchett, M. M., & Lozowy, A. (2012). Reframing the Canadian Oil Sands. Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies , (3-2). http://www.csj.ualberta.ca/imaginations/wp- content/uploads/2012/09/011_Patchett_Lozowy_V2.pdf Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication record in Explore Bristol Research PDF-document University of Bristol - Explore Bristol Research General rights This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/red/research-policy/pure/user-guides/ebr-terms/ REfREFRAMINGRAMING THE CANADIAN OIL SANDSThE CANAdIAN OIl S ANdS Curatorial Essay by MERLE Patchett • Photographs AND Essay by ANDRIkO LOzOwy “Reframing the Canadian Oil Sands” is a collaborative Cet article est une collaboration entre le photographe exchange between photographer Andriko Lozowy and Andriko Lozowy et la géographe culturelle Merle cultural geographer Merle Patchett that engages pho- Patchett. La photographie et la théorie photographique tography and photographic theory to evoke a more crit- y sont mises à profit afin de susciter un engagement ical and politically meaningful visual engagement with visuel significatif des points de vue politique et critique the world’s largest capital oil project. Since the appear- avec le plus important projet pétrolier à ce jour. Depuis ance of Edward Burtynsky’s aerial and abstracted pho- les photographies aériennes de la région des sables tographic-mappings of the region, capturing the scale of bitumineux par Edward Burtynsky, cette manière de the Oil Sands from ‘on high’ has become the dominant photographier à distance les zones d’exploitation a visual imaginary. As a result, the dominant visual culture connu une popularité croissante. Par conséquent la of Fort McMurray oil production is one of nullification culture visuelle dominante de la production pétrolière or an erasure of representation. For the past five years de Fort McMurray s’est mise à vouloir invalider ou Lozowy has been engaged in a photographic project— effacer cette représentation. Il y a cinq ans, Lozowy a entitled Where is Fort McMurray?—which aims to ex- entamé un projet intitulé Where is Fort McMurray? qui plore and work with this sense of erasure by attempting a pour but d’explorer et d’utiliser cette idée d’effacement to capture the shifting (and shifted) landscapes of the Al- en essayant de capturer les paysages mobiles (et berta Oil Sands from the roadside. For this special issue démobilisés) des sables bitumineux albertains à partir of Imaginations on “Sighting Oil”, Patchett and Lozowy des bords de route. Patchett et Lozowy ont organisé have curated a set of Lozowy’s photographs to present une exposition des photos de Lozowy pour le présent an alternative, on-the-ground, view of Oil Sands pro- numéro d’Imaginations. Cette exposition présente une duction sites. Through both Lozowy’s images and Patch- vue alternative –au niveau du sol– des sites de production ett’s framing curatorial essay, they explore the disruptive pétrolière. À travers les images de Lozowy et les textes potential of the image and the capacity of photography de Patchett, on retrouve le potentiel perturbateur de to both neutralize and energize political engagement l’image et la capacité de la photographie de neutraliser with the Canadian Oil Sands.” et de stimuler à la fois l’engagement politique face aux sables bitumineux canadiens. IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 3-2, 2012 • 140 PATCHETT & LOzOWY fROM ON hIGh to ThE Road SIdE: SCAlAR AesthETICS ANd ThE CANAdIAN OIl S ANdS MERlE PatchETT Fig. 1 “Mayday Mayday... we’re abandoning the radio room; we’re abandoning the radio room. We can’t talk any more, we’re on fire.”—Mayday Message from the Radio Room before it was engulfed by the fire From ‘On-High’ to the Roadside: Scalar Aesthetics and However the spectre of offshore production was rudely the Canadian Oil Sands and radically illuminated on the night of July 6, 1988. In a series of explosions the Piper Alpha oil rig, located Growing up in the Scottish coastal city of Aberdeen— 120 miles offshore, was obliterated in a blaze of fire, the ‘oil capital of Europe’—I was keenly aware that oil killing 165 of the 226 men on board. Two crewmen and water can be a volatile mix. Aberdeen became the operating a rescue vessel were also killed, bringing the centre of the European oil industry during the North death toll to 167 men on “the night the sea caught fire” Sea oil boom of the 1970s. The international oil crisis (Matsen 27). of the same decade had led to a huge rise in worldwide oil prices and this made extracting oil from the North In the disaster’s aftermath the Cullen Inquiry, which Sea an attractive opportunity for multi-national oil began in January 1989 and lasted 13 months, companies like BP, AMOCO and Shell. Although drill- established the causes of the tragedy and made ing platforms were stationed 100 miles off the coast in recommendations for future safety regimes offshore. the North Sea, the spectre of oil pervaded the city: from Those affected by the tragedy were left questioning the emergence of Europe’s busiest heliport which sup- why it took a multi-fatality event for an evaluation plied the rigs with workers, to the mammoth oil service of the oil and gas regulatory system to take place and vessels docked in Aberdeen harbour, to the expansion of why the rig owner’s—Occidental Petroleum—were the city itself through new housing, offices and schools. yet to be prosecuted. The victims of the disaster set up 141 • ISSUE 3-2, 2012 • IMAGINATIONSIMAGINATIONS REFRAMING THE CANADIAN OIL SANDS the Piper Alpha Families and Survivors Association to are related to energy and Alberta’s per capita GDP is campaign to bring Occidental to justice. Although the higher than all other Canadian provinces and US states Cullen Report (made public on November 12, 1990) (Levant). was highly critical of Occidental’s safety program on Piper Alpha prior to the disaster, Lord Fraser, the Lord Before moving to Edmonton, all I knew about the Advocate and Scotland’s chief legal officer, concluded province was that it was home to the controversial ‘Tar that there was not enough evidence for a conviction. Sands’ project, the largest surfaced-mined reservoir of As Lord Advocate for Scotland, his analysis could not crude bitumen in the world. Situated North East of be questioned and Occidental suffered no penalty for Edmonton, roughly centered on the boomtown Fort their negligence in the Piper Alpha disaster.1 The lack of McMurray, the Athabasca ‘Oil Sands’ is the world’s corporate accountability was a huge blow for the Piper largest Capital Oil Project, currently producing 1.3 Alpha Families and Survivors Association. In 1991, the million barrels of oil a day (see Fig. 1).2 Commercial association erected a memorial sculpture in Hazlehead production began in 1967 and the total area of Park, Aberdeen to ensure that those who perished, exploitable reserves covers 140,000 km²—an area many whose bodies were never recovered, were at least larger than England (Levant 2011). Oils Sands are publically and individually accounted for. The park is naturally occurring mixtures of sand, clay, water, and just a short walk from my family home. Engraved on an extremely dense and viscous form of petroleum a pink granite plinth, topped by a larger than life-size technically referred to as bitumen. The primary methods bronze sculpture of three oil workers, are the names of extraction are surface mining or in-situ drilling and of the dead. Their ages at death are also given. With the three main operating companies are Suncor Energy, the youngest 19 and the eldest 65 the dead span three Syncrude and Shell Canada. About two tons of oil sand generations. must be dug up, moved and processed to produce one barrel of synthetic crude oil, and up to 5 barrels of water Piper Alpha remains the world’s deadliest offshore oil are consumed for every barrel of oil produced, making disaster and is an event that woke, not just Aberdonians, the Oil Sands Capital Project the world’s most carbon but the world itself to the human cost of investing in and water intensive oil production process.3 an oil economy. Revisiting the Piper Alpha memorial as an adult now living in Edmonton, Alberta—Canada’s The Oil Sands Capital Project is also one of the world’s ‘Oil City’—I am keenly aware that our continued most environmentally destructive industrial projects. dependency on oil as an energy source guarantees For example, in order to surface mine the bitumen large further fatalities and environmental damage because swathes of Canada’s Boreal Forest are being deforested oil exploration, capture, refining and transportation to the point where the project is slated to have the are inherently dangerous and destructive processes. Yet, second fastest rate of deforestation on the planet after I am also aware my presence in Alberta is due to the the Amazon Rainforest Basin (Nikiforuk). The process relative economic stability and job security afforded of turning the oil sand into crude oil also produces by Alberta’s oil economy. This is the dirty truth any numerous toxic byproducts. The water used to strip Albertan has to reconcile with. Oil was first discovered the bitumen from the sand, for example, is discharged in Alberta in 1902, and its production continues to afterwards as contaminated water into “tailings” ponds. fuel the province: oil and gas royalty revenues make The leftover “tailings” are a mixture of dirty water, up 30% of the Government of Alberta’s total revenue clay, silt and sand but can also contain copper, zinc, (Nikiforuk).