Buried Sunshines Burn, 2023

Installation view: Solarstalgia, Arken Museum, Ishoj, 2024. Photo By David Stjernholm

The photographic series Buried Sunshines Burn dives into the crude histories of oil extraction by exploring the seeping asphaltum and bituminous residues of industrialization. These works utilize heliography, the earliest photographic technique developed by Nicéphore Niépce in 1822. This process requires an emulsion made from naturally occurring tar, which was collected from the La Brea, McKittrick, and Carpinteria Tar Pits in Los Angeles.

From a bird's-eye perspective, Buried Sunshines Burn are geo-portraits both of and with hydrocarbons, embodying the fossilised sunshine upon which the mythos and industrial reality of Los Angeles is founded.

All images are © Julian Charrière / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

Buried Sunshines Burn | 4DJ.ND6 and Buried Sunshines Burn | 489.MF3, 2023
Installation view: The World Through AI, Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2025. Photo by Jeu de Paume Photographie / Antoine Quittet
Installation view: Buried Sunshine, Sean Kelly, Los Angeles, 2023. Photo by Brica Wilcox. Courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly