The series Our Neighborhood juxtaposes sites of residential life in cities and towns across the US from Texas to Pennsylvania, with the infrastructure of the petrochemical industry. If your house is near an oil or gas well, a power plant or a refinery, you hear it, you smell it, you know it is dangerous. It is however familiar. You are used to it. You accept it because either you have no choice or it is your best choice.
We Americans all live in this house. This is our neighborhood, our home. Despite a dip in 2020 due to the pandemic, the US remains the world’s largest oil producer, The oil and gas business represents about 8% of US GDP with over 10 million employees. At the same time, the burning of fossil fuel is threatening to destroy life as we know it. The need to reduce CO2 emissions is on a direct collision course with the expanding US oil and gas industry. While each American emits around 15 metric tons of CO2 annually and uses alkanes, alkenes, naphthenes, benzene, butadiene, polypropylene, polystyrene daily, the enormous infrastructure needed to extract, transport, and process these petrochemicals is often overlooked. Each image in Our Neighborhood creates a visual metaphor of what we all are living with, what we take for granted, and to what we have become desensitized. Looking at the world we have created, without blinking, challenges resignation to the status quo and climate change. It is a step towards action.
