George Osodi

When “oil actually becomes a commodity”, “an incredible visual drama unfolds”, says George Osodi, a Nigerian Associated Press photographer and artist. This drama can be seen in every one of his photographs. Despite the difficult conditions that prevail in the Niger Delta, Osodi has been able to take aesthetically impressive pictures with his digital equipment, images that in no way play down the grim conditions of life but calmly reflect the urgency of the local situation. The series Oil Rich Niger Delta contains 200 digital photographs in all; the Goethe-Institut has selected 60 for its website.

Osodi’s repertoire includes classic photographic motifs: portraits with dramatic foregrounds and backgrounds, formally composed close-ups and rhythmically structured still lifes – the only difference being that these images are not taken in a studio but are photographs of men, women and children living their everyday lives against the backdrop of the oil industry. Osodi points his camera at simple boats lying close together at the edge of a swamp, showcasing as if coincidentally the beauty of the landscape; at heavily-armed and well-camouflaged MEND militants (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta), whose ammunition belts and tough clothing surfaces create patterns and structures; or at women collecting polluted water in colourful plastic bowls. There are no points of contact between the subjects of Osodi’s portraits and the profiteers – this is a “dual system”. There is no doubt in Osodi’s pictures as to who is responsible and what the causes are. This human-caused climate catastrophe is documented, warts and all.

Companies like Agip, Chevron, Shell and Total burn the gas released during the oil extraction process, causing acid rain and changing the marine biotope as a result of their seismic activities far from the coast. Drinking water is contaminated by oil leaks in drill holes which are not properly sealed, and fish can only be caught in the polluted waterways. Tons of oil have been extracted from the Niger Delta every day since the 1960s, and all the money goes to the multinationals and the Nigerian government. The local population, on the other hand, confronted with the negative effects of the oil industry, has only disadvantages.

The fires and pitch-black clouds of smoke often serve as a dramatic source of light in Osodi’s photos. His image structure thrives on reflections – mangrove swamps, the “hostile topography of the region”, and their inhabitants who are reflected in the water’s surface, or in small mirrors in living rooms. As a result, the photographs, some of which are shot with a wide-angle lens, additionally acquire a powerful spatial impact.

Ever since the beginning of the 1990s, local guerrilla groups have been throwing a spanner in the works of oil production – it is a long and complicated history. The MEND movement demands a share of the oil money and was the first group to radicalize the fight, taking western oil employees hostage. In the docu-fiction film The Age of Stupid, a young doctor in the Niger Delta reports how Shell has withdrawn from community projects out of fear of kidnapping. Unlike in this film, however, Osodi does not document individual fates, and thus does not run the risk of producing kitschy pictures.

A further-reaching project by Osodi is a photographic series featuring at least five oil-producing countries, for which the series Oil Rich Norway, among others, was shot in the Lofoten islands.