Climate Interventions: Virtual Expressions of Art and Environmental Activism
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The Ontology of Natural Capital: Resource Extraction and Political Resistance in Northern British Columbia
Sinead Earley, Department of Geography (Queen’s University, CAN)
New digital medias have been incorporated into the workshop each year, generating inventive ways of sharing and collaborating as an online community. In 2010, participants created a virtual field trip using photographs and Picassa to start conversations about commodity chains and automobility. In 2011, a short film competition was held, with submissions that explored the broad theme of seasons.
This year, I have attempted to put together a multi-media presentation that will bring an audio-visual liveliness to the geographical context of natural resource extraction in northern British Columbia and Alberta, and to the historical context of resource management as it has developed in Western Canada over the course of the last 60 years. These visual medias are exhibits of a world marked by postwar technologies and widespread environmental change; they also shed light on the current political tensions that exist in the province over pipeline construction and the long-distance transportation of natural gas and bitumen. I aim to question how natural resources have come to be valued (and utilized) within negotiations of energy, environment and anthropogenic climate change, combining some of the most contentious topics in Canadian geopolitics.
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‘Earthrise’
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Northern British Columbia and Alberta are covered by cutlines, exploratory incisions made by the oil and gas industry. The above hyperlink will provide access to a series of images of cutlines and the geography they intersect. They were taken during fire patrols in a Bell 212 helicopter, summer 2012, by Patrick Earley.
THE ACTION CAMP
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NATIONAL FILM BOARD/Interactive: Welcome to Pine Point
An evolving collection of innovative, interactive stories exploring the world – and our place in it – from uniquely Canadian points of view. About a town in the Northwest Territories that ceased to exist.
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Place and Placelessness 
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