Richard · Misrach, Swamp & Pipe, Gaismar, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
United States Petrochemical (1998–2012)
Richard Mislach, best known for his contemporary landscape paintings of the United States West, was commissioned by the High Museum of Art in 1998 for its "Painting the South" project. He chose to photograph the more industrialized section of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, known as Cancer Alley. Mislah describes Cancer Lane as "an extraordinary corridor with history, culture and natural resources that has been almost destroyed over the past few decades due to the introduction of the petrochemical industry." In addition to the classic pre-Civil War plantations that have been restored and may be restored, there are 136 sprawling industrial sites – a bizarre contrast between the fascinating and the terrifying. ”
Petrochemical of United States features Richard Mislah's memorable photographic record of Louisiana's chemical corridors and landscape architect Kate Orff's Eco Atlas, a series of "speculative maps" developed by studying and mapping data on the region. Their combined efforts have mapped and revealed the complex cultural, physical, and economic ecology of 150 miles along the Mississippi River, from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, a chemically intensive area that was first brought to public attention when unusual cancers were found in the area, known as "Cancer Alley."
The collaboration resulted in an unprecedented multi-layered document that presented a unique visual narrative of information. United States Petrochemical provides an in-depth analysis of the causes of decades of environmental degradation in North America's largest river system. What's more, the project provides an extensively researched guide to how the petrochemical industry permeates every aspect of contemporary life. What the book reveals, however, is that Cancer Alley, while complicated by its own regional history and specificity, may well be an apt metaphor for the global impact of petrochemicals on the entire human landscape.
Richard Misrach, Hazardous Waste Shelter, The Dow Chemical Company, Mississippi River, Plaquemin, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Batur, north of Port Allen, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Bulk carrier, Bonnetcarré Spillway, near Norco, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Playground and Shell Refinery, Norco, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, Exxon Refinery, Baton Rouge State Capitol, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, abandoned trailer on the Mississippi River near the Plaquemin Dow Chemical Plant in Louisiana, Richard Misrach, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, Playground and Shell Refinery, Norco, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, Dead Tree, Toxic Waste Shelter, Mississippi River, The Dow Chemical Company, Plaquemin, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, St. Rose Cemetery and The Dow Chemical Company (United Carbide Consortium), Taft, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Abandoned Kaiser Aluminum Works, North Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, Community Monuments, Former Morrisonville Settlement, The Dow Chemical Company, Plaquemin, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Scenic Highway (Abandoned Enterprise and Shell Chemical Company), Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Mary, Destreyen, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, Pipes and Rivers, Donaldsonville, Louisiana, 2010 ©
Richard Misrach, Bulk Carrier (Grain), Bonnetcarré Floodway, Norco, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Bonnetcarré Spillway, Norco, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, "Hazards," Hazardous Waste Shelter, Mississippi River, The Dow Chemical Company, Plaquemin, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, St. Rosary Cemetery (Blue Mary), Taft, Louisiana, 1998 ©by Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Dakvid, near San Rose, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, Roadside Vegetation and Orion Refinery, Goodhope, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, West Bank, Mississippi River, The Dow Chemical Company, Plaquemin, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, helicopter returning from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Venice, Louisiana, 2010 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, St. James River Road Baptist Church, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, Tour Guide, Notoway Plantation, White Castle, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Notoway Plantation, Indoor, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, Night fishing, near the Carré Floodway in Bonet, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Residential and Grain Elevators, Destreyehan, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Ashland-Bell Helen Plantation, acquired by Shell Chemical Company, Gasmar, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Tour Guide, Oak Lane Plantation, Wachery, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Sugar Cane and Refinery, Mississippi River Corridor, Louisiana, 1998 ©
Richard Misrach, Revetment Signs and the Hale-Boggs Bridge, West Bank of the Mississippi River, Louling, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Norco Cumulus, Shell Refinery, Norco, Louisiana, 1998 ©Richard Misrach
Richard Misrach, Richard Misrach, Luminous, 2010 ©
Kate Orff from United States Petrochemicals. © SCAPE
Richard Misrach, New Home Construction, Paulina, Louisiana, 2010 ©Richard Misrach
Kate Orff from United States Petrochemicals. © SCAPE
The impact of petrochemistry on the landscape.
From the earth to the sky.
Consumption patterns in the United States can be traced back to the landscape of Cancer Alley. More than a hundred oil refineries and chemical manufacturing plants mingle with sugar mills, metal processing plants, and coffee production plants, revealing the needs of United States past and present. United States consumers benefit from the myriad of products produced by petrochemicals, while pollution and waste often affect only the poorest communities. Excerpt from United States Petrochemical (Aperture 2012), © SCAPE
The pipeline network shown in the diagram is primarily provided by oil and gas extraction in the Gulf of Mexico. More than 25,000 miles of underwater oil and gas pipelines are buried beneath the seabed, connecting offshore drilling platforms to refineries and chemical industries in inland states in the Gulf of Mexico. Spanning vast expanses of land and water, these offshore platforms integrate infrastructure, ecological and political requirements into new geographies. Excerpted from Petrochemical United States (Aperture 2012), © SCAPE
Kate Orff from United States Petrochemicals. © SCAPE
Delta ecosystems have captured and cleaned up floodwaters throughout the Mississippi River Basin, slowly dispersing nutrient-rich sediments into a complex network of swamps and estuaries. Over millions of years, a wide variety of species, including the beloved Louisiana invertebrate crayfish, have co-evolved into lowland cycles of low oxygen and nutrient saturation. The ongoing physical and chemical transformation of the delta is breaking the cycle of this network. Excerpt from United States Petrochemical (Aperture 2012), © SCAPE
Chapter 2 Infrastructure Main Chapter Diagram.
Details: from salt dunes to pipes.
Details: from pipes to plastic bags.
Details: Pipeline to United States.
Details: Metabolic waste.
Toxic Emissions Diagram.
Details: Toxic Emissions Map.
Details: Mississippi cultural history.
Details: Requiem for the Bayou.
Details: Bigger, farther, more loads.
Glossary inset image, inside the back cover cover
Picture of the exhibition "Petrochemical in United States: Project Room".
***
Richard Misrach, "Nighttime Release," Mississippi River Corridor, Louisiana (1998) ©Richard Misrach
[Courtesy of Pace/McGill Gallery, New York, Frankel Gallery, San Francisco, and Mark Selwyn Gallery, Los Angeles; From Petrochemical in United States, photo by Richard Mislach, ecological atlas by Kate Orff (Aperture, 2012)]
Illuminate the petrified landscape
The combination of photography and environmentalism is rich and full of contradictions. From the 19th-century surveys of the United States Geological Survey by Timothy O'Sullivan and William Henry Jackson of the United States West, to the legacy of masters such as Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter in the mid-20th century, to Robert Adams, Richard Contemporary collections by Richard Misrach, Edward Burtynsky, Mark Klett, Chris Jordan, and Subhankar Banerjee, to name a few, photographers don't just try to document landscapes, It also seeks to raise awareness of the far-reaching and often detrimental consequences of human activity on the planet – the impact on rivers and oceans, forests and deserts, extreme Arctic climates and everyday life in the suburbs.
However, the photographer-environmentalist inevitably struggles with the constraints of the medium – faced with the challenge of capturing temporal processes (such as change and decline) and atmospheric outcomes (such as pollution), with the decontextualization and abstraction of photographic frames, with the temptation of aestheticization, and with the tension between artistic ambition and political significance.
Richard Mislach's Nightfall, Mississippi River Corridor, Louisiana (1998) exemplifies this tension. Like many of the photographs in Mislah and landscape architect Kate Orff's new book, "Petrochemical in United States," "Nightfall" exudes a beautiful premonition. The train cars lay silently beneath a dense network of wires, shrouded in what appeared to be a yellowish-gray fog that could have been toxin-laden vapour; In the background, the silhouette of industrial buildings and petroleum processing infrastructure looms. When we study the beautifully made photographic negatives in the large-format rolls, we can't help but feel that something bad must be happening here. However, this tightly framed night scene doesn't help us further understand what that really is – in fact, the low contrast and soft focus seem to reinforce the blurred attitude of the photo's subject.
In my early essays—discussing Edward Burtinsky's series "Oil" and Chris Jordan's series "Midway," I argued that environmental photography must be complemented by facts and narratives in order to be an effective form of propaganda. I pointed out at the time that this was not a new argument; Of course, I'm not the only one who worries that photographs like Burtinsky's – stunning large-format color photographs of resource extraction, transportation, processing, consumption, and abandonment sites – might actually make us accustomed to the existence of environmental destruction. Such works often provoke a brief awakening of conscience, but fail to elicit a sustained response, because in the end the images – no matter how bizarre, sensational, or disturbing – provide only part of the message. What really happened to a large Canada refinery or an abandoned Azerbaijan oil field? Are we somehow implicated, or even responsible?
Nowadays, more and more photographers are exploring innovative approaches to environmental and landscape photography; However, many of these explorations take place within the formal markers of the field, and often they are more successful as art than as advocacy. So the question remains: can we create a viewing experience by presenting and contextualizing photographs, shed light on the complexity of environmental issues, or even force us to take action? Can this be done without compromising the openness necessary for photography as an art form? Several recent projects point to promising directions; All projects focus on the environmental impact of oil.
Multiple perspectives
In 2010, the nonprofit International Coalition of Conservation Photographers organized a "Rapid Assessment Visual Exploration" (RAVE) campaign targeting the Great Bear Rainforest in British Colombia, which was (and is) threatened by the proposed Ambridge Northern Gateway oil pipeline. If approved, the 731-mile twin pipeline would connect Alberta's Athabasca tar sands to a terminal on British Colombia's remote North Coast, which is currently off-limits to tankers. iLCP sent a team of seven photographers and three videographers on a 14-day expedition to capture images of the rainforest in different styles and methods, including "landscapes, wildlife, macros, camera traps, portraits, and documentaries."
This approach has a lot to offer, and in fact, iLCP has organized about a dozen RAVEs over the past few years; A coordinated team of photographers can create images that extend the work of environmental scientists, and multiple perspectives promise to lead to diverse perspectives and ideas. The potential of this approach is best illustrated by the contribution of Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier. With a focus on indigenous peoples, her photographs depict indigenous people fishing and harvesting tang crabs in jitgart; These photos remind us that northern British Colombia has been affected by human activity for generations, so they deepen our understanding of the potential consequences of the pipeline. Unfortunately, however, the photographers at RAVE of the Great Bear Rainforest often make aesthetic choices that seem timid to me, content with the (inaccurate) clichés of beautiful, wild and uninhabited wilderness; The final photo shows a rushing river, snow-capped peaks, and charismatic large animals (especially the White Spirit Bear).
One of the more successful multi-perspective experiments is Voices of the Arctic: Resistance to the Tipping Point, a recently edited collection of articles and photographs by photographer and activist Subhankar Banerjee.
The book is a collection of 37 essays and memoirs, scientific reports, and government testimonies about the people and resources of the Arctic and the various struggles to protect these riches; Authors include indigenous peoples, ecologists, hunters, geographers, environmentalists, and professional writers. Banaji praised these diverse groups by quoting an old saying from the builders: "Never tell just one story." Always tell a second story. In this way, the first story will not be forgotten. Together, these different texts help readers understand the background of 75 black-and-white illustrations and more than 40 color images, including a 2006 photograph of gas combustion at an oil production facility in Pradhoe Bay, taken by biologist Pamela A. Miller, whose 2003 report, "Breaking Promises: The Reality of United States Arctic Oil Majors," has been updated and reprinted. In this way, Arctic Voices blends photography and words to present us with a multi-dimensional, profound portrait of an endangered region (though perhaps more powerful if words and images were more tightly combined).
Photography as a narrative
One proven method of combining photography with narrative is the traditional photographic prose. Samuel James's Water in My Land, published in the September 2012 issue of Harpers magazine, chronicles oil production in contemporary Nigeria. James begins the article with a detailed explanation that allows us to understand the meaning of this eerie photo of a West African forest illuminated at night:
Hundreds of illegal oil refineries in the Niger Delta region are on fire every night. Rogue groups engaged in industrial-scale crude oil theft, known locally as "oil stealing," sell stolen crude oil to remote creeks and swamps, where makeshift refineries refine crude oil into diesel, which is then shipped downstream to be sold on the black market. Refinery workers in the delta work in toxic environments and are constantly threatened by government authorities and local militias.
Conundrums in form and composition ("What am I looking at?"). This is addressed with detailed instructions. A confusing photograph showing a boat filled with dark liquid, the figure of a man, the river and the lush vegetation around it, explains it as: "At an illegal oil refinery, a worker sits on a wooden boat full of crude oil. Local communities rely on the river water for bathing, drinking, and fishing. With this additional information, the photo went from descriptive to frightening. The form of photographic essay has also allowed James to study many aspects of the Nigerian oil industry, so we are beginning to feel how it all comes together – how oil consumption creates environmental risks and inequalities. Yet, while James' photographs of the Niger Delta are influential, they feel disconnected from United States politics and economics — not to mention life at home — despite Nigeria being our fifth-largest oil supplier. What's missing here is a strategy to extend these photographs in time and space, pointing to deeper causes and dependencies, long-term effects, and global systems.
Through-line
One particularly powerful and innovative project is Misrak and Orff's Petrochemical of United States, which focuses on southern Louisiana's oil infrastructure—specifically the 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that connects Baton Rouge to New Orleans, once known as "Petrochemical Alley" because of its many refineries and more recently "Cancer Alley" for the same reason. Here, Misrak's photographs are combined and extended with Orff's meticulously researched "Ecological Atlas," which visually shows how oil has shaped the landscape of United States. A satisfying outcome of this collaborative approach is that the photographs don't seem overly cumbersome; On the contrary, despite the superposition of information and narrative, and perhaps even because of it, they remain mystical and beautiful.
Orff refers to her work as a thread – a way of extending photographs in time and space and ultimately telling a story; In this sense, she considers her work to be more focused on narrative than on data visualization. For example, a map of the lower Mississippi River was overlaid on Misratche's Nightly Release, plotting the location of chemical processing and distribution facilities. A spiderweb web of red lines and brown lines traces the rail, highway and pipeline routes through which petrochemicals pass, as well as the locations of various facilities — from United States Alcoa, Safety-Klein and ExxonMobil Chemical upstream to DuPont Dow Elastomers, United States Cyanamide and Chevron Oronite further south. On the opposite page, a small map of the United States shows natural gas transportation corridors and provides broader context. Next to that is an explanation of how minimally processed petrochemicals exported from Louisiana are turned into "children's toys, DVDs, dinner plates, and a dazzling array of other consumer goods."
Thus, Orff's through-line illuminates Mislah's photograph like a flash of light, revealing some of the larger systems into which it fits. We can still see train cars and fog, but now we can also understand the early and late moments in the petrochemical extraction, transportation, and production process.
Richard Mislach was an accomplished photographer who rose to fame early on for photographing atomic bomb test sites in the western United States. Kate Orff is a landscape architect whose work focuses on urban ecology and green infrastructure. Petrochemical in United States is an unusual book consisting of three parts. The first part is Misrak's series "Cancer Alley", which includes photographs he has taken over a decade. In 1998, he was commissioned by the High Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta to photograph the "Depicting the South" exhibition; In 2009, Museum Director Julian Cox asked Mislak to create a new collection. Misrak was interested, but wanted to do more; In his words, "do interventions that extend and may yield some constructive results." ”
The first part, Cancer Alley, is a 49-page full-color edition, often accompanied by explanatory passages written by Orff, which is very different from the neutral tone of typical museum wall text or art book titles. In fact, these short words convey the meaning and feeling of the image. For example, in Norco Cumulus Clouds, Shell Refinery, Norco, Louisiana (1998), a seemingly naturally fluffy cloud accidentally hovers over an industrial area and is later found to be an artificial cloud – "Norco Cumulus Cloud" is the local nickname – "made up of a mixture of moisture and volatile hydrocarbons" over the Shell Refinery in Norco, Louisiana; We also learned that in 2009 "the United States EPA ranked Louisiana as one of the top 10 sources of air and water pollution in the United States." ”
The second part consists of Orff's "Ecological Atlas"; She works to "[unravel] moments in photographs, revealing the closely related systems and everyday scenes that make them up, [providing] a broader range of templates for understanding, imagination, and action." Her central argument is that our "perceived failure" is part of the reason for our failure to act. Petrochemicals United States aims to help us see and understand that "together we have created a petrochemical-consuming machine landscape" that is natural, but by no means natural. As Orff describes, these threads throughout—complex images layered with photographs, maps, drawings, and infographics—are experiments in "narrative mapping"; They explore seven aspects of the petrochemical industry – oil, infrastructure, waste, displacement, ecology/economy, food, and landscape – to expand our understanding of its scale and history.
For example, in the waste section, Orff reinterprets Mislah's Night Flame (2010). The gas flame in the photograph suggests a vast system of industrial processes that is largely invisible. Orff's visual narrative, titled "Deep Underground, High in the Air," explains how toxic waste, including "hydrochloric acid, explosives, and pesticides," is both released into the air and sequestered in a "geological pocket" that can seep into groundwater. We can't see toxic waste a mile underground, and we can't see particulate matter in the air, but in this way, the gas flame is stitched back to its origin environment as part of a petrochemical facility, which is beyond our direct perception. In the infrastructure section, the meaning of Mislah's Pipelines and Rivers in Donaldson, Louisiana (2010) has been similarly expanded.
We learned exactly where these pipelines and roads lead and what they transport; We also learned that "waste, ethylene, and large quantities of oil" — including parts of the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve — are stored miles underground in "ancient geological features known as salt dunes." In an interview with Aperture, the book's publisher, Orff explained that she believes Misrah's photographs suggest "ghost stories" waiting to be explored and disseminated. In fact, like many of Mislakh's photographs, "Pipes and Rivers" does look haunted, more Gothic than sublime, threatened by hidden forces. As a style, Gothic has long been used to document secret desires and unhealed historical wounds; Here, environmental Gothic records the fear that one day oil wells will burst, pipes will leak, and toxins will accumulate in living organisms.
The final thread, "Bigger, Farther and Filled with More Stuff" under "Landscape," is an overlay depicting the oil needed to build and maintain a large single-family suburban home. Mislah's photograph "New Home Construction in Paulina, Louisiana" (2010) is zoomed in here to show United States' growing homes (now more than double the size of 1950) and the oil needed to make household products, including particleboard and PVC, paint and shingles, soda cans, and milk cartons. It is fitting that the second part ends with the landscape section, because for Orff the landscape connects all parts of the narrative. In her view, the landscape offers an understandable middle scale, between the seemingly inconsequential nature of individual actions ("lights off") and the enormity of the global environmental problems caused by climate change. She wants us to move beyond the traditional, outdated appreciation of landscapes – picturesque, beautiful, natural – and instead understand landscapes in multiple dimensions, as products of multiple social, historical, environmental, and economic forces.
The third part of Petrochemical in United States is a 24-page booklet hidden in a pocket on the back cover: "Glossary of Terms and Solutions for Post-Petrochemical Culture." The glossary is arranged alphabetically, starting with action networks, adaptive reuse, and bioremediation, and ending with walking, watershed management, and wetland terraces. While the book is glossy and colorful, and impressive in weight and size, the glossary is small and lightweight, using matte white paper and printed in black and brownish-red. It doesn't have photos, but schematics to illustrate some scenes. For example, in Body as a Sensor, we see residents carrying soil samples to a mobile lab for blood testing. Essentially, it shows us the practical application of a few key terms – action networks, mobile health clinics, scent and symptom magazines, toxic emissions inventories. The modest production of the glossary reinforces Orff's view that solutions will depend on grassroots networks and local action; As you can imagine, roll it up and keep it in your carry-on place, it's a guide to your journey from the oil sector to a post-petrochemical future.
Mislah's photographs and Orff's main line share the space of United States Petrochemical, but crucially, they operate in different areas. The photographs are extremely detailed, while the graphics and text of the main line are intended to represent a broader and more inclusive phenomenon, both historical and contemporary. Together, they underscore the need for two approaches. Orff said in an interview with Aperture: "Richard's photographs are almost intuitive and emotional experiences. "I hope that by integrating emotion and analysis, photography, research, and speculation, this book can inspire deeper discussions about the future of energy, our shared climate, and the landscapes we create." …… Hopefully, it will inspire other types of collaboration and exchange. "I also hope we see more creative collaboration between artists and writers, photographers and designers – collaborations that can play a dual role in our collective efforts to imagine and understand complex environmental issues, and ultimately to envision and create a better environmental future.
– Mark Feldman
concerning
Richard Mislach (born 1949) has long ties to the southern United States. His last monograph, "Destroying This Memory," chronicled hurricane graffiti left on homes and cars in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. "On the Beach" and "Legacy of Violence" explore the problem of pollution in desert and beach areas. Kate Orff (b. 1971) is an assistant professor at the University of Colombia and founder of SCAPE, a landscape architecture studio in Manhattan. Her work blends sustainability, biodiversity design, and community change. Orff's recent exhibition "Oyster-tecture" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York envisions the future of the polluted Govanas Canal as part of a bottom-up community process and an ecologically revitalizing New York Harbor.
Richard Mislach is one of the most influential photographers of his generation, best known for his ongoing project, Desert Poems. His work is in the collections of major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of United States Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. He is a four-time recipient of the National Arts Fund Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lifetime Achievement Award for Photography. His books with Aperture include Legacy of Violence (1992), On the Beach (2007), Destroying This Memory (2010), Petrification in United States (with Kate Orff, 2012), Golden Gate Bridge (2012), The Mysterious Opacity of Other Existence (2015), and Border Poems (with Guillermo Galindo, 2016).