Oil and Water

Digital video with sound
2 min. (trailer 33 sec.) 

Oil and Water video highlights the complex conditions regarding overlapping and contested terrain where cultural heritage including historic and aboriginal trade routes, and the development of natural resource extraction industries including proposed crude oil pipelines, share the geography of remote northwest regions of Canada. The video poetically interweaves images and sounds of water and oil, fishing and refineries, rivers and tar sand pits that are intermeshed with sounds of people talking to suggest the need to reconsider a national identity based on the imaginary of empty wilderness. It emphasizes the dilemmas facing the nation with regards to petroculture and sustainability; to the risks and benefits to the environment, culture, and the economy and a future imaginary.

Oil and Water by Ruth Beer is a component of Trading Routes: Grease Trails, Oil Pipelines, a research/creation project supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.