Robert Bateman recently destroyed a piece of his own artwork in protest of a proposed oil pipeline. The video below is part of a campaign by Canada’s Dogwood Initiative, and shows Bateman, an artist renown for his depictions of Canadian wildlife and landscapes, taking a ruinous brush to his canvas, in demonstration of what would happen in the event of an oil spill from the contested pipeline.
The video’s release was planned to coincide with the nineteenth anniversary of the Exxon Valdez’s catastrophic oil spill off the coast of Alaska. In that accident, 41.8 million litres of crude oil was leaked into the surrounding waters, which contaminated roughly 2,080 km of coastline.
The concept was developed by Rethink Communications, who have also worked with the World Wildlife Foundation, and AIDS Vancouver, among others.
The campaign, called No Tankers, hopes to
block a proposed oil pipeline from Alberta’s tarsands to the B.C. coast, which, among other things, will increase oil-tanker activity and exponentially raise the chances of an oil spill in this diverse – and fragile – ecosystem.
You can get involved by visiting NoTankers.ca and signing their petition.
Via Art Threat.
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