Visual Methodologies
by Danielle Alexander and Rachel Stevens
In Petrochemical America, Kate Orff develops a sophisticated method of spatial representation and analysis to produce a complex perspective on the petrochemical industry and its effects on southern Louisiana. This artistic and design research project, performed with photographer Richard Misrach, traces the development of the petrochemical industry and the deep marks it has left on the landscape through seven chapters: Oil, Infrastructure, Waste, Displacement, Ecology, Food, and Landscape. In the context of converging crises of energy, climate, settlement, and biodiversity, Orff articulates a project that unites theory and praxis: in a first section, through analytical mapping and graphical representations she discloses the temporal processes and dynamic relationships at work among these systems, and in a second, more discursive section she explores possible modes of intervention that could disrupt these destructive cycles and restore ecological and social vitality to the Louisana landscape. As Orff negotiates these two aspects of her work, she captures the analytical and communicative power of landscape architecture when applied to crises of varying scales while acknowledging the continuing challenge of translating such insights to measurable change in the landscape. In her efforts to map and analyze this landscape through an “Ecological Atlas,” Orff’s work emerges as the most recent instance of a tradition of using mapping as a visual methodology for interpreting landscape. The pages of Petrochemical America bring the complexity and interconnectedness of Louisiana ecology, industry, and society into striking relief through photographs, maps, diagrams, and richly developed sections she