For this series, Tanja Engelberts overlaid photographs of a seemingly empty sea with a reflective material. Once illuminated by a flashlight you can read the oil platform names. Treasure finder, Barnacle, Indefatigable, Vanguard are all names of fields on the North Sea. The reflective surfaces referencing the name signs on platforms, always visible at night.
When an oil platform is removed, nothing remains visible for the bare eye above the water surface: nothing refers to the history of the place. With this work, Tanja Engelberts imagined what people would see in the future if they would fly over the seascape, looking for signs of the past. The photographs are taken with a drone that is searching for something, which contributes to the feeling of trespassing and secrecy.
In 2021, Tanja Engelberts has just finished her 2-year-long residency at the Rijksakademie. For the past 4 years, she has been working on the offshore projects: the changing North Sea landscape of oil and gas platforms that are disappearing, in which she also examines our changing attitude towards this fossil fuel industry. In her artistic practice, Engelberts wonders what happens to processes that people set in motion, but which have consequences that will manifest themselves long after our own deaths.