Gas / Alain Willaume
 
In 2012, Alain Willaume was invited to consider the implications of an impending programme of fracking by the Shell Company in the semi-arid Karoo area of South Africa. In response to an uncertain future and in the absence of any visible industrial activities – authorizations of exploitation are yet to be delivered by the SA government – he has conjured an evanescent metaphor for the invisible threat. After this founding trip, Willaume decides to document an actual shale gas exploitation in Pennsylvania. Like in South Africa, he meets the suspicions and fears of the inhabitants and activists he meets on the roads. And witnesses the impacts of the gas industry getting control of the region and its drinking water.
The dark pictures of this new series are a moving contrast to the pale and contemplative images shot in the African desert.
 
The exhibition GAS is made out of excerpts of the two series Echoes of Dust and Fracturing (South Africa, 2012) and Fractured and confused (USA, 2013).