Description
OD Photo Prize 2024 | Judges’ Pick
Selected by Aron Mörel
Publisher, Mörel Books
“Shawn Bush’s project is a disorientating combination of various photographic series that reflect the confusion and manipulation of corporate, political and media spin we’re all too aware of in the post truth era.
The various strata of the project create a challenging narrative through a maelstrom of images.The use of multi exposures results in a complex and disorientating surface, a palimpsest where industry-generated myths and variable facts are intertwined.
At its core, the project suggests that something is happening, but it’s difficult to pin down precisely what that is.” — Aron Mörel
Lens-based artist Shawn Bush (b.1987) grew up in Detroit, MI, a city whose civic history and geographic location have profoundly influenced how he thinks about physical space within American sociopolitical and socioeconomic landscapes. As a result, his photographs and collages are responsive to over-built systems, failing icons, and collapsing mythologies.
Artist Statement | “From the late 1970s to early 1980s, Exxon funded research on the impact of fossil fuels on global warming, producing a report warning about the catastrophic consequences of unsustainable extraction and consumption of non-renewable energy. Instead of heeding the advice from years of research and transitioning to sustainable methods of energy production, Exxon’s executives chose to embark on an aggressive public relations campaign and rebranding effort, diverting millions of dollars from the company to develop propaganda. This propaganda aimed to downplay fossil fuels’ contribution to global warming – a decision that has significantly contributed to the current urgent climate crisis.
My large-format photographs and in-camera collages examine the intersections of power, sustainability, and whiteness in the American energy industry through the lenses of the natural landscape and propaganda imagery. Throughout my process, I consider the impact the fossil fuel industry has on the natural environment, local economy, and future prospects of those left behind by corporations. The resulting series considers how framing the imagery impacts the national imagination—upholding social, political, and economic control systems. The simplicity of the photographic frame and its ability to crop, imitate, and repeat itself becomes an omnipresent weapon to censor nonbelievers and advertise a capitalist and androcentric ideology.
The final series, Now/When, combines multiple projects (Land, Sea & Air, Have/Has/Had, and Angle of Draw). Angle of Draw is an expansive project that explores Exxon’s involvement in creating the current climate crisis. Have/Had/Has rephrases 1980s oil and gas advertisement copy as prompts for change on top of pictures taken from a 1982 Time Magazine article on the American energy industry. Land, Sea & Air juxtaposes printed media from November 1982 with vernacular images taken from The Prop Master’s User Manual on top of collaged pages from Exxon’s 1982 report. Each image showcases the Exxon report in its totality. Photogram-like masking reflects symbols taken from diagrams in the Exxon report.
Images encapsulating the totality of Now/When will be published by Gnomic Book in 2025 as a monograph.“ — Shawn Bush
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