Bitumen slick on the surface of Suncor’s newest tar pond. The brown water and sludge are saturated with carcinogens. After 40 years, there is still no process to deal with the tar sands affluent
Imagine a world of swirling technicolour among unearthly vistas of an unfathomable scale, without any obvious signs of flora or fauna.
While it seems like a description of a fantastic land like those of Tolkien or Star Trek, photographer Louis Helbig exposes these landscapes as those of the Canadian hinterland in Northern Alberta.
His exhibition, which is now showing at the City Hall Art Gallery, consists of a series of disorienting and almost whimsical aerial photographs of the Alberta tar sands.
Helbig had never been to the tar sands when he decided to embark on this project in 2008. He says that he had seen very few images of the tar sands and deliberately kept it that way until he flew over them in the summer of 2008.
“I avoided looking at images of the tar sands. I didn’t want preconceived notions of them so that I would be able to see them unfiltered,” says Helbig.
When he took off on his first flight and soared above them he says what he saw was a gargantuan and surreal place.
“When you separate the issue that surrounds the tar sands they’re unbelievably beautiful, the colours that came at me were absolutely mind-boggling,” says Helbig.
The first thing that came to his mind was Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. For Helbig flying over this bizarre, exotic landscape was very disorienting and he says that the natural thing to do is reach for some cultural touchstones to make sense of his disorientation.
To pay tribute to the surprising beauty that he found in the destruction of Northern Alberta’s once pristine Boreal forest, Helbig titled his exhibition Beautiful Destruction.
One of his motivations behind the project was the lack of substantive dialogue about the impact the tar sands is having on Canada’s environment, economy, and culture.
“In Canada the debate is limited to caricatures of us vs. them, Calgary vs. Toronto, industry vs. the environment,” Helbig says. “With this exhibition I wanted to create a this space where people can reflect, relate to it, and debate it in order to get away from the stupidity.”
What he finds worrisome is that the major tar sands debates are happening outside of Canada, in Europe and the U.S. and that these debates are beginning to define Canada’s international reputation.
The tar sands, says Helbig, should not be such a divisive issue because they affect all Canadians. He says what all Canadians should find disturbing is the non-critical stance of the government towards their exploitation.
“Why are the industry’s message and the government’s message the same? There’s no oversight and industry gets too much run over things. When our public officials are in the pockets of industry all Canadians should be concerned,” Helbig says.
Aesthetically, Helbig’s choice of aerial photography to document the tar sands landscapes defies the imagination.
“It’s a really unique way to see things. These perspectives of familiar things make you go wow!”
He says the scenes disturbing beauty come from the jarring combination of colours, forms, lines, the play of oil, water and light.
That combined with the massive scale of the images provides observers with a truly surreal experience. To truly grasp the immensity of the landscapes Helbig includes miniscule points of reference that might be a dock, pumping station, boat or truck.
Beautiful Destruction will be on display at the City Hall Art Gallery until September 26. It was selected to be exhibited at the gallery by a jury of artists from the community.