JPG Magazine: Stories: Feature Story: Removing Mountains

Feature Story

Removing Mountains

By Daniel Shea

31 March 2008

In the summer of 2007 I began shooting a body of work examining the coal industry in Appalachia. What started as an interest in the modern coal mining process known as mountaintop removal, quickly evolved into an extensive survey of the social/political institutions surrounding these practices, and perhaps most importantly, the cultural implications of extracting coal from Appalachian Mountains. What I found over the course of the trip was that these coal mining processes had quickly developed into one of the most destructive and pervasive forms of modern industry in the world.

Coal, the number one energy-based resource domestically, is responsible for mass environmental destruction, and some, if not most of the United States would suggest that it's a necessary sacrifice. Consider the flicker of our monitors and lights, which are powered by coal-burning power plants, using coal from the Appalachian region. The issue's complexities clearly go above and beyond this apparently less-than-polemical "sacrifice." The human cost, above all, presented itself clearly and potently, rendering notions of "necessary evils" and "sacrifices" relatively useless political rhetoric.

Appalachian culture is historically defined through coal practices and popularly defined by an unfair misconception about its people. In reality, I found communities sustaining culturally rich legacies, and I was fortunate enough to observe from the periphery, as a witness. Over the course of three months, I became more involved with the people I was around, and was quickly shown nothing short of good old Southern hospitality. A lot of these photographs represent time spent in these quiet and dauntless communities. In terms of mountaintop removal, I found people both embracing and/or vehemently opposing such practices. Of course, there were many that did not fit this neat polarization, but the ideological and economical battle was/is being waged ferociously in the mountains.

As for my approach, I embraced the histories of my medium, and set out to essentially make a social documentary narrative filtered through a strong recognition of the image's influence in the West, and an interest in the historical delineation of landscape. My goal is to build a narrative out of context, where my point of view, and my limited perception are not ignored. After all, I consider this body of work to be art about a political issue, not political art. By default, many associations will be immediately made, but my hopes are that the viewer will eventually look at the group of photographs as a complex series of potential contingencies, much like the issue being dealt with.

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