Tar Remedies

This two-part essay turns to the landscapes of bitumen mining in the Athabasca tar sands in western Canada. Despite the environmental costs of the tar sands mining process, the Canadian state remains invested in oil extraction in the tar sands. Starting from the premise that the extraction and burning of this bitumen was and is not inevitable, this dialogue locates hazardous hope in the landscapes of the Athabasca region. To do so, the first section is an analysis of Warren Cariou’s photographic practice, situating his work within themes of toxicity and hope. Written by an art historian, it argues that we can read the petrographs through a mode of critical spectatorship that generates questions about how extraction makes our world and how these processes are historically contingent choices based in what society has chosen to value. The second part is a short reflection by Warren Cariou on his practice and how he theorizes hope in the context of pollution.