Kerogen Dreams
2025HD Video, 11:29:00
Soundtrack by Haamid Rahim
From silver and lithium, to coltan, bitumen and coal, contemporary life is shaped by minerals and precious metals that sustain techno-capitalism. Kerogen Dreams is a mythological retelling of the entangling of photographic history, extraction, and fossil fuels. Kerogen, the ghost of compressed bone and ancient forests, narrates it’s own birth and the development of two parallel technologies.
Commissioned by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin as part of a solo exhibition, Image Metabolisms, it was produced through a variety of media: modeled environments, mining landscapes of Alberta's coal country, microscopic footage of coal collected in Germany, video from an arctic coal mine turned data archive, and a mine in the artist's home country of Honduras. The film was produced amid growing concerns about energy production and the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure, as the entangled systems sustaining modern life began visibly shifting.
The film emerged from her time in Alberta, while visiting Crowsnest Pass Museum, Nancy encountered a diagram titled "What does Mankind Owe to Coal?", mapping the political economy of coal in Alberta in the early 20th century. The drawing reveals how deeply ancient compressed life is woven into the products and chemical processes of today, from tar to cotton dyes to perfumes. This prompted the question of the debt accrued from future generations, through an insistence on carbon reliance.
Upcoming Screenings
Double Takes: ARAVARA
A rotating audiovisual exhibition in collaboration with LL Proyectos
Curated by Yina Jiménez Suriel
June 4 – 21, 2026
Museo para la Identidad Nacional (MIN)
Antiguo Palacio de los Ministerios, Calle El Telégrafo, Tegucigalpa, Francisco Morazán, Honduras
June 28 – September 13, 2026
National Gallery of Jamaica
BLOCK C, Kingston Mall, 12 Ocean Blvd, Kingston, Jamaica W.I.
Commissioned by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin as part of a solo exhibition, Image Metabolisms, it was produced through a variety of media: modeled environments, mining landscapes of Alberta's coal country, microscopic footage of coal collected in Germany, video from an arctic coal mine turned data archive, and a mine in the artist's home country of Honduras. The film was produced amid growing concerns about energy production and the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure, as the entangled systems sustaining modern life began visibly shifting.
The film emerged from her time in Alberta, while visiting Crowsnest Pass Museum, Nancy encountered a diagram titled "What does Mankind Owe to Coal?", mapping the political economy of coal in Alberta in the early 20th century. The drawing reveals how deeply ancient compressed life is woven into the products and chemical processes of today, from tar to cotton dyes to perfumes. This prompted the question of the debt accrued from future generations, through an insistence on carbon reliance.
Upcoming Screenings
Double Takes: ARAVARA
A rotating audiovisual exhibition in collaboration with LL Proyectos
Curated by Yina Jiménez Suriel
June 4 – 21, 2026
Museo para la Identidad Nacional (MIN)
Antiguo Palacio de los Ministerios, Calle El Telégrafo, Tegucigalpa, Francisco Morazán, Honduras
June 28 – September 13, 2026
National Gallery of Jamaica
BLOCK C, Kingston Mall, 12 Ocean Blvd, Kingston, Jamaica W.I.
( Installation View, Image Credit: Blaine Campbell )
