Shot from the edge of a roadside ditch in northeast China, this high-contrast black and white photograph captures a dense cluster of oil pumpjacks framed between two upright power poles. Nine pumpjacks, their heads at varying angles, crowd the horizon in an industrial tangle. Some nod, some wait. Above them, electric wires cut across the frame—modern infrastructure layered over an equally enduring source of energy.
Wired with Oil examines the layered persistence of energy systems. Electricity and oil, often presented as opposing futures, here coexist in the same moment and landscape. The photo offers no drama of transition, only the slow, practical entanglement of parallel dependencies. In this view, the path away from oil doesn’t begin with erasure—it begins with acknowledgment.