All the Way to Hell Launches Experiment in Climate Change Activism
All the Way to Hell is an activist art project for disrupting fossil fuel development on private land in the United States. All the Way to Hell owns a small mineral property in Oklahoma. Oil and gas developers have come knocking. The project is giving away its mineral rights to as many people as possible. This aggressive fragmentation of the property will inhibit fossil fuel interest in it. The aim is to make mineral rights as inconvenient and expensive to acquire as possible.
New York, NY, September 22, 2020 --(PR.com)-- September 20, 2020 marks the official launch of All the Way to Hell: an act of resistance as artistic gesture encouraging mass participation. Participants are invited to join the artist in owning mineral rights in Oklahoma for this climate initiative in order to thwart would-be fossil fuel drillers from fracking oil and gas from this land, thereby creating one potential new avenue for pursuing environmental justice.
In the United States, private property rights extend to the heavens (ad coelum) and all the way to hell (ad inferos). With the advent of aviation, ad coelum was redefined as 400 feet of airspace (more in urban areas). Subsurface rights extend, at least in theory, to the center of the earth. Unconventional fossil fuel extraction, a method called “fracking” (hydraulic fracturing,) creates previously unimaginable access to underground deposits. The most advanced fracking technologies can now reach deposits 15,000 feet deep. This technology has made heretofore inaccessible fossil fuel reserves throughout the country recoverable. Burning all known fossil fuel reserves will cause the average temperature to increase 9.5 degrees Celsius (17 degrees Fahrenheit). As the planet has already increased in temperature due to the current climate emergency, the only option for environmental justice moving forward is to leave as much fossil fuel as possible in the ground.
All the Way to Hell exploits the legal/bureaucratic property ownership regime in the United States to allow willing individuals to inhibit fracking through ownership of mineral rights. The project would further reinforce one of the primary injustices of fracking: absentee mineral rights holders sign deals while the community has to live with the consequences. This demonstrates the classic case of the privatization of profit and the socialization of costs.
This project begins with three acres in Northeastern Oklahoma. Fossil fuel developers have made unsolicited offers for this property. Because the property is small, refusal is not an option if neighboring mineral property owners agree. All the Way to Hell was created to inhibit fracking on this property by transferring mineral rights to up to 1,000 individuals. Drilling companies are unlikely to want to research land title and execute, register and administer leases and royalties for a thousand individuals to gain access to a mere three mineral acres.
The final aim is for hundreds of individuals to own All the Way to Hell as a collectively held artwork. The work takes private property ownership and rights of exclusion to their natural conclusion. It will also create opportunities for those who have never had or thought about mineral rights to exercise some authority over them due to economics or geography. It activates the invisible relationships that enable oil and gas development to take place throughout the US. The project invites the audience and participants to imagine disrupting the destructive pursuit of the wealth 2-15,000+ feet underground. Participants and supporters are also invited to share this opportunity with their networks.
In effect, All the Way to Hell is a large-scale, mass-distributed, asynchronous protest; it is a 100 year sit-in, piloting a new form of protest and resistance that can conceivably be maintained over decades.
By firmly rooting this project in law and bureaucracy, All the Way to Hell hopes to create an experience that challenges the audience and participants to grapple with the material roots of climate change. Real people with names, families, histories, agendas, and needs own most private US mineral rights. Through fracking, some have added to their already substantial wealth, some have acquired wealth for the first time, and others hope to be rewarded eventually. Few who would deny drilling companies access to minerals are in a position to do so.
The project is presented at the Thomas Erben Gallery in New York, NY in a fully functional pilot phase.
Eliza Evans experiments with sculpture, print, video, and textiles to identify disconnections and absurdities in social, economic, and ecological systems. The initial parameters of each work are carefully researched and then evolve as a result of interaction with people, time, and weather. Born in a rustbelt steel town and raised in rural Appalachia, she currently splits her time between New York City and the Hudson Valley. Her work was exhibited at the Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, NY (2020), Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY (2019), Edward Hopper House Museum, Nyack, NY (2019), Chashama Sculpture Field, Pine Plains, NY (2018), BRIC, Brooklyn (2017), and Purchase College, Purchase, NY (2017). Residencies include the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, UC Santa Barbara (2020), Bronx Museum AIM, and Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN (both 2019). Evans holds an MFA from SUNY Purchase College in visual art and a Ph.D. in economic sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.
In the United States, private property rights extend to the heavens (ad coelum) and all the way to hell (ad inferos). With the advent of aviation, ad coelum was redefined as 400 feet of airspace (more in urban areas). Subsurface rights extend, at least in theory, to the center of the earth. Unconventional fossil fuel extraction, a method called “fracking” (hydraulic fracturing,) creates previously unimaginable access to underground deposits. The most advanced fracking technologies can now reach deposits 15,000 feet deep. This technology has made heretofore inaccessible fossil fuel reserves throughout the country recoverable. Burning all known fossil fuel reserves will cause the average temperature to increase 9.5 degrees Celsius (17 degrees Fahrenheit). As the planet has already increased in temperature due to the current climate emergency, the only option for environmental justice moving forward is to leave as much fossil fuel as possible in the ground.
All the Way to Hell exploits the legal/bureaucratic property ownership regime in the United States to allow willing individuals to inhibit fracking through ownership of mineral rights. The project would further reinforce one of the primary injustices of fracking: absentee mineral rights holders sign deals while the community has to live with the consequences. This demonstrates the classic case of the privatization of profit and the socialization of costs.
This project begins with three acres in Northeastern Oklahoma. Fossil fuel developers have made unsolicited offers for this property. Because the property is small, refusal is not an option if neighboring mineral property owners agree. All the Way to Hell was created to inhibit fracking on this property by transferring mineral rights to up to 1,000 individuals. Drilling companies are unlikely to want to research land title and execute, register and administer leases and royalties for a thousand individuals to gain access to a mere three mineral acres.
The final aim is for hundreds of individuals to own All the Way to Hell as a collectively held artwork. The work takes private property ownership and rights of exclusion to their natural conclusion. It will also create opportunities for those who have never had or thought about mineral rights to exercise some authority over them due to economics or geography. It activates the invisible relationships that enable oil and gas development to take place throughout the US. The project invites the audience and participants to imagine disrupting the destructive pursuit of the wealth 2-15,000+ feet underground. Participants and supporters are also invited to share this opportunity with their networks.
In effect, All the Way to Hell is a large-scale, mass-distributed, asynchronous protest; it is a 100 year sit-in, piloting a new form of protest and resistance that can conceivably be maintained over decades.
By firmly rooting this project in law and bureaucracy, All the Way to Hell hopes to create an experience that challenges the audience and participants to grapple with the material roots of climate change. Real people with names, families, histories, agendas, and needs own most private US mineral rights. Through fracking, some have added to their already substantial wealth, some have acquired wealth for the first time, and others hope to be rewarded eventually. Few who would deny drilling companies access to minerals are in a position to do so.
The project is presented at the Thomas Erben Gallery in New York, NY in a fully functional pilot phase.
Eliza Evans experiments with sculpture, print, video, and textiles to identify disconnections and absurdities in social, economic, and ecological systems. The initial parameters of each work are carefully researched and then evolve as a result of interaction with people, time, and weather. Born in a rustbelt steel town and raised in rural Appalachia, she currently splits her time between New York City and the Hudson Valley. Her work was exhibited at the Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, NY (2020), Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY (2019), Edward Hopper House Museum, Nyack, NY (2019), Chashama Sculpture Field, Pine Plains, NY (2018), BRIC, Brooklyn (2017), and Purchase College, Purchase, NY (2017). Residencies include the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, UC Santa Barbara (2020), Bronx Museum AIM, and Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN (both 2019). Evans holds an MFA from SUNY Purchase College in visual art and a Ph.D. in economic sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.
Contact
All the Way to Hell
Eliza Evans
307-223-1814
www.allthewaytohell.com
Eliza Evans
307-223-1814
www.allthewaytohell.com
Contact
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