Alone behind the wheel of her car, @caroline.ruffault explores Texas with the idea of working on the liminal space between bodies and the desert landscapes of the West. But as she travels, the focus shifts: from the body to the car. "The sky is bigger in Texas" is a photographic series centered on the disappearance of the landscape caused by car culture and the ecological disasters it generates in northern Texas.
Caroline Ruffault meets Shuyler Wright, who grew up on a Texas ranch whose mineral rights were sold to an oil company during the 1929 crisis. Today, his family faces the consequences of thousands of abandoned wells: highly toxic water rises to the surface, destroys vegetation, and creates polluted lakes that expand each year. Shuyler is now fighting to strengthen legislation and hold companies accountable in a state where the oil industry remains extremely powerful.
Caroline Ruffault explains: “By immersing my landscape film rolls in produced water from shale gas extraction, I can overlay the reality of destruction onto our idealized images.”
prints by @granondigital
On view until December 3 at @lantretemps_rennes as part of the @glaz.festival