Tanja Engelberts: Forgotten Seas

The world offshore is a world unknown. At least for most of us. Fascinated by the flashing lights in the distance, like the call of sirens on the horizon, Tanja Engelberts (NL) became interested in the offshore oil and gas industry. ‘Forgotten Seas’ is the accumulation of six years of research, a journey across the North Sea.

The work is a photographic exploration of Engelberts’ archive, consisting of documentary photographs taken during her trips on maintenance vessels and on the platforms, as well as historical images she collected over the years. The photographs are combined with written anecdotes about life on an oil rig. Stories of people she met on the sea and her own travel experiences.

Upon the waves we go. From optimism and the feeling that man had conquered nature in the fifties, to a more critical view on the fossil fuel industry and its future: the destruction of the first platforms. Each chapter has its own visual language and design, highlighting the raw and complex structures on the sea while evoking a sense of awe and guilt.

‘Forgotten Seas’ is a testament of seventy years of gas and oil drilling in the North Sea, an industrial landscape that is slowly disappearing.