The artistic process

On April 20, 2010, the ocean was taken hostage following the explosion of the BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The failure of the automatic bottom safety valve (BOP) and of the plugging procedure led to the loss of control of the well for three months (eleven deaths, an oil spill of four million barrels polluted the ocean). BP also spilled five million liters of toxic dispersants into the marine ecosystems. The cascading effects in the food chain were devastating, though little was mentioned in the world press and media – more than 6000 oiled birds, thousands of dead animals (turtles, cetaceans including hundreds of adult and newborn dolphins stranded on the beaches in early 2011…), -twenty-five kilometers of blackened coastline. Bayous can take twenty or thirty years to recover their natural state . Thousands of square kilometers were off-limits to fishing boats.