we cannot fathom the depths of our shadows
we cannot fathom the depths of our shadows was a performance and installation by Alana Bartol, performing as the Dowser, through the ongoing project Orphan Well Adoption Agency (OWAA). The work was presented at Eastern Edge Gallery’s HOLD FAST Festival of Contemporary Art in 2018, where Alana was a headlining artist and artist-in-residence for six weeks. Thank you to Calgary Arts Development for their support of this work. Scroll down to read more. Performance photos by Dan Smith.
While the Orphan Well Adoption Agency (OWAA) often addresses orphaned oil wells on land, this work extends that inquiry offshore, toward abandoned oil wells on the ocean floor. As part of this research, Bartol, working through the persona of the Dowser, travelled to Newfoundland and Labrador to visit the Core Storage and Research Centre (CSRC) in St. John’s, a government archive that houses geological core samples and drill cuttings from offshore oil wells. Drill cuttings are fragments of rock brought to the surface during drilling, and serve as one of the few physical traces of wells located hundreds of kilometres offshore and thousands of metres below the sea.
The Dowser is a speculative figure who facilitates communication between people and orphaned and abandoned oil wells. Within the Orphan Well Adoption Agency, the Dowser operates as an intermediary, translating between human concerns and sites of extraction that are geographically remote, materially inaccessible, and largely forgotten.
During the performance, audiences were invited to participate in one-on-one pendulum dowsing readings with the Dowser. Dowsing, a practice historically used to locate water or minerals, is reconfigured as a communicative tool rather than an extractive one. Participants asked simple yes-or-no questions that were personally meaningful to them.
The pendulum used in the performance was custom-made by the Orphan Well Adoption Agency. Glass test tubes containing drill cuttings from J-49, one of the first wells drilled in the White Rose offshore oil field (now abandoned), were inserted into the pendulum as an “assist” for the reading. Suspended in ocean water, the drill cuttings functioned as material conduits, linking participants to distant offshore sites.
The installation also included a postcard for participants with a digital drawing known as the White Rose constellation. This constellation maps the locations of abandoned offshore oil wells, translating technical data into a image. At the end of each reading, participants received one of the test tubes and a postcard depicting the White Rose constellation. In exchange, they were asked to release the drill cuttings back into the ocean, allowing them to disperse and symbolically return to the site from which they originated. This gesture does not claim repair or resolution, but instead marks acknowledgement, responsibility, and entanglement.
we cannot fathom the depths of our shadows invites reflection on offshore extraction, distance, and the limits of human perception. Through performance, ritual, and mediated communication, the work asks how we might relate to sites that exceed our capacity to see, measure, or fully understand, yet remain intimately connected to our lives.
Read a review here: http://canadianart.ca/reviews/hold-fast-contemporary-arts-festival/