REFINED

Accounting for roughly 40% of global carbon emissions, the industrial agricultural sector impacts much more than our personal health. With a high dependency on carbon-producing petrochemicals, this sector destroys our soils, contributes to climate change, affects our social structure, and forces us into a viscous circle dependent to this unnatural science. Too long have we turned a blind eye on the impact that our industrial agricultural systems have on our global community to the benefit of turning a profit.

Refined is a photographic body of work that embellishes the issue of petrochemistry in our agriculture in hopes to spark awareness. Each image depicts a subject derived of highly polluting crops, that is unveiled by a stream of “petroleum”; the chemical used to create most of our pesticides and insecticides. The contrast between the visible petroleum and the invisible food is representative of the dependency these crops have on the petrochemicals used in their production. While these images are perhaps aesthetically pleasing, their background should remind us that not all progress is progressive.