Chris Graham

As I've started looking deeper into 1912 I've come across facts that reinforce my own governmental/ military paranoias. BEFORE WW1 (and it's supposed conflict start at the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand), Winston Churchill as the Commander of the Admiralty changed the naval fleet from coal to oil, to help speed the navy across the seas to protect the as yet, still unsecured future oil supplies and cut off the rapidly lengthening German railroad heading across the middle east.

Abadan Harbour, Persia 1912.

British troops, Abadan 1912.

Local indigenous slave, sorry, worker.

I've started reading Daniel Yergin's Pulitzer prize winning, "The prize". It's a 900 page historical explaination of oil discovery and it's political use in our modern times, the story of the "epic quest for oil, money and power" across the world.

New invention in 1912, the "Vickers" machine gun.

The all new Vicker's machine gun looks just the tool you'd need to mow down those ungrateful indigenous rebels who oppose you raping their lands, destroying their culture and implementing crooked democracy, all for a pittance of recompence.

Speaking of money...

In 1912, Abadan was the world's largest oil refinery which featured on the 100 rial note.



AAAHHHH! Poor little oil donkey, 1912.

I wanted to respond to the human suffering at the beginning of modern capitalism in 1912 and the rapidly expanding consumption of oil from Persia, but I am finding it difficult to find hard documentation on the local indigenous slaves, sorry, workforce. However, it is documented that up to 500 donkeys at a time could be used for the transportation of equipment, heavy lifting and drilling and operation of each new drilling site.

So, I had the idea of ringing local donkey sanctuaries, making enquiries about how sick, how near death, their donkeys' actually were, in the hope of displaying a recently deceased, rotting, stinking carcass, covered in oil, swathed in flies, buzzing, bloated and beautiful. How was I supposed to realise that they wouldn't be too keen on this ideas as I was?

Undeterred, I still wanted to do something with donkeys... (bestiality is legal in Denmark!) so I started making my own 'back up' donkey, out of expading foam...

Donkey (work in progress) 2012.

Donkey (work in progress) 2012.

  Donkey (work in progress) 2012.

Then I remembered the scale of gallery 4 and decided to go a little smaller with some donkey army mash ups...

Donkey army (work in progress) 2012

And as it will soon be "the season to be jolly", you must show your love for your children by buying them shitty, shiny, plastic toys that reinforce war, dependence on oil, production and consumption, all in the name of the birthday of that little black fella from Palestine.

Ho Ho Ho. What a great opportunity to condition kids into capitalism. Oil as the new religion.

Which led to this bastardization of jesus and Pavlov's dog...

"In Dog we trust" 2012

Pavlov's Dog diagram- salivation through conditioned response

I'm also toying with the idea of donkey piniatas covered in the 100 rial notes, full of blood and oil, getting bashed in the gallery by small children... and knitted stockings hanging from the fire place, dripping oil, making drawings... and a nativity set, atop the mantlepiece, filled with the tribal, political and corporate players of 1912... Churchill, Knox D'Arcy, The Shah, Willhelm the 2nd, Nicholas 2nd, J. D. Rockefeller... we'll see where all these ideas are heading.

                                                 

Abadan nativity scene (work in progress) 2012?



US marine on donkey 2012

 Donkey and baby (work in progress) 2012.

As you can see from the image, I've now started making a little baby Pavlov's Dog head Jesus to ride on top of the donkey, which I may heavily arm with guns and rockets. I think it would make a great toy set. I wonder if I can package it and shrink wrap/ vacuum form the front?

My initial ideas for this project are to start looking at Middle Eastern military conflicts involving the US and the UK 100 years ago. Was the protection of the oil fields as paramount to Western capitalism at the beginning of industrialisation as it is now? Indigenous slave labour, enforced democracy, rebellions, uprisings, collaterel damage, I wonder if 1912 was the same?