Tanja Engelberts
Cities of desire (2017- ongoing) / Decom (2021)
Cities of desire is the first group of works in an ongoing project about the North Sea and its economic landscape. The harsh conditions on the North Sea make the offshore industry almost the ultimate symbol of man overcoming nature. Artificial cities of concrete and metal lie in an apparent empty sea. They leave a lot to the imagination.
After decades of prosperity and activity the North Sea landscape is changing. The low oil and gas prices and the exhaustion of wells have left some of the platforms abandoned. Questions about the future rise: are we looking at monuments, decaying junk or places of new possibilities?
The installation consists of pictures that were taken during a two-week residence at the maintenance ship Kroonborg (NAM), combined with archival material from different offshore operators (Shell, Total, Wintershall). The exhibition shows photographs - Sometimes up-close, sometimes seemingly floating by - of North Sea platforms printed on sheeted steel. In the pictures, the horizon shifts up and down. The scratched steel on which the images are printed comes to life in the sunlight and suggests a previous usage.
Decom "is a portrait of a decommissioning yard, the place where oil and gas platforms come to die".
The artwork has two different gates: a slow and peaceful one, almost outwardly, and a fast and violent one, that embraces the machine perspective.
The film does not feature any form of human presence, just machines left to clean up what’s left behind.
Tanja Engelberts (1987, NL) uses her work to investigate landscapes that are no longer visible. Landscapes such as artificial islands in the North Sea are often related to the fossil fuel industry. Her investigation of these landscapes is represented in her work in the forms of films, prints, sounds and texts where the forgotten atmosphere of the landscapes is now again visible. With her artworks, she records the world’s changing attitude towards the fossil fuel industry, studying the process that sets people in motion and creates consequences that manifest much later after these landscapes have disappeared.
After decades of prosperity and activity the North Sea landscape is changing. The low oil and gas prices and the exhaustion of wells have left some of the platforms abandoned. Questions about the future rise: are we looking at monuments, decaying junk or places of new possibilities?
The installation consists of pictures that were taken during a two-week residence at the maintenance ship Kroonborg (NAM), combined with archival material from different offshore operators (Shell, Total, Wintershall). The exhibition shows photographs - Sometimes up-close, sometimes seemingly floating by - of North Sea platforms printed on sheeted steel. In the pictures, the horizon shifts up and down. The scratched steel on which the images are printed comes to life in the sunlight and suggests a previous usage.
Decom "is a portrait of a decommissioning yard, the place where oil and gas platforms come to die".
The artwork has two different gates: a slow and peaceful one, almost outwardly, and a fast and violent one, that embraces the machine perspective.
The film does not feature any form of human presence, just machines left to clean up what’s left behind.
Tanja Engelberts (1987, NL) uses her work to investigate landscapes that are no longer visible. Landscapes such as artificial islands in the North Sea are often related to the fossil fuel industry. Her investigation of these landscapes is represented in her work in the forms of films, prints, sounds and texts where the forgotten atmosphere of the landscapes is now again visible. With her artworks, she records the world’s changing attitude towards the fossil fuel industry, studying the process that sets people in motion and creates consequences that manifest much later after these landscapes have disappeared.