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About This Event
– This event takes place online only.
– You can access this event for free through this web page and also on the Whitechapel Gallery’s YouTube Channel, here.
– This event is suitable for those over the age of 16.
– We are unable to provide British Sign Language interpretation for this event.
– We are unable to provide live closed captioning or CART for this event.
– As the event is scheduled for a total of one hour, we will not take a rest break.
– As the event is being live streamed, you can access it from your home if you have access to an internet connection.
– Event recordings can be found on our YouTube channel. Please contact info@whitechapelgallery.org with any questions.
This information will be updated where required.
27 May – 4 June 2021
“The most devastating thing you will ever see.” – Neil Young
Shot from a helicopter, Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands offers an unparalleled view of the world’s largest industrial, capital and energy project. Canada’s tar sands are an oil reserve the size of England. Extracting the crude oil called bitumen from underneath unspoiled wilderness requires a massive industrialised effort with far-reaching impacts on the land, air, water, and climate. It’s an extraordinary spectacle, whose scope can only be understood from far above. In a hypnotic flight of image and sound, one machine’s perspective upon the choreography of others suggests a dehumanised world where petroleum’s power is supreme.
As the need to move away from fossil fuel use becomes ever more urgent, two crucial works remind us of the terrible cost attached to our pursuit of ‘black gold’. Peter Mettler‘s startling aerial survey of the Alberta’s catastrophic tar sands extraction reveals the scale of the challenge, while long-time carbon cycle activist and writer James Marriott‘s new co-authored book brings the analysis back home. He will be in conversation with Suzanne Dhaliwal, Climate Justice Creative, Campaigner and Co-Founder of the UK Tar Sands Network, following our week’s screening of Petropolis.
Find out more about Marriott’s book, Crude Britannia: How Oil Shaped a Nation, co-authored with Terry Macalister, here and via the trailer below:
Ahead of the live event on 3 June, Petropolis was be screened for free here from 27 May – 4 June 2021.
This event is part of our season Ways of Knowing: Water / Fluidity.
From the beginning of his career, Peter Mettler has created films deemed impossible to make yet readily appreciated once they exist. Melding intuition with dramatic, documentary, and experimental forms, Mettler’s cinema is at the forefront of contemporary practice. Meditations on our world, rooted in personal experience, his films reflect the visions and wonder of their characters and audiences alike.
A restless cinematic adventurer, Peter Mettler’s singular body of work is characterized by hybridism, a sense of wonder, unusual forms of collaboration, and a disregard for classification. Frequently visiting themes of transcendence and the delicate relationship between technology and the natural world, Mettler’s films combine travelogue, essay, interview, fiction and critique. They are guided by instinct yet grounded in discipline, structure, craft, and a knack for apprehending stunning images and great stories.
Suzanne Dhaliwal is a Climate Justice Creative, Campaigner, Researcher, Lecturer in Environmental Justice and Trainer in Creative Strategies for Decolonisation.
Voted one of London’s most influential people in Environment 2018 by the Evening Standard. In 2009 she co-founded the UK Tar Sands Network, which challenged BP and Shell investments in the Canadian tar sands in solidarity with frontline Indigenous communities, spurring the internationalisation of the fossil fuel divestment movement. She continues to serve as director and campaigner for the organisation.
Suzanne is currently practice tutor in Ecology Futures at the St. Joost School of Art & Design and is available for speaking engagements, writing and creative commissions, and consultation services.
