"Torpaq ve Alov - miwa da cecxli - Land & Fire - Ax u Agir - Toprak ve Atex" is being shown in Foyles Gallery in central London. Composed of fables, photography, poetry and maps, the exhibition uncovers London's oil footprint in the Caucasus and Turkey.

The exhibition contains images & responses from the communities living alongside the controversial Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, constructed by BP from Azerbaijan, through Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean coast. Since June 2006, the pipeline has been pumping Caspian oil for export to Western Europe. BP’s longest pipeline moves a million barrels of oil every day through fields, rivers and nature reserves.
LAND & FIRE AX U AGIR TORPAV VE ALOV MIWA DA XANZARI TOPRAK VE ATEX

London's oil footprint in Turkey & the Caucasus - a visual journey along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline

featuring fables, photography, poetry, film & maps by Andrea Scaringella, James Marriott, Negar Hassan Zadeh and Martin Skalsky

April 6-22 The Gallery @ Foyles Bookshop, 113-119 Charing Cross Rd, WC2H
Special film screening of Source (Zdroj) - 7pm Friday April 20th

Torpaq ve Alov - miwa da cecxli - Land & Fire - Ax u Agir - Toprak ve Atex utilises London's role as a diasporic city to encourage cultural and political communication between the Azeri, Georgian, Kurdish and Turkish populations. While in the South Caucasus these communities are strung out along the route of the pipeline with limited possibility for communication, in London the diaspora are living side by side.

This pipeline was built in London before the first villager was consulted. Constructed on hard drives and wallcharts by a carbon web of bankers, lawyers, civil servants and engineers, BTC was a creation of our city. Now, the pipeline’s output is returning to London, where Caspian geology is transformed into exhaust fumes and BP and RBS share dividends.

While the cars and planes of Western Europe consume Caspian crude, the communities above the pipeline pay the cost. Kurdish villagers face harassment from military police for crossing their own land. A faulty pipe coating threatens pollution in the protected Borjomi Nature Reserve, production site of Georgia’s primary export, mineral water. Turkish fishermen are losing their livelihoods as supertankers take priority at Yumurtalik, a fishing port on the Mediterranean coast. Oil revenues finance Azeri state repression and an arms race with Armenia. BTC’s annual load of oil can be combusted into 160 million tonnes of carbon dioxide gas – equivalent to 30% of UK emissions.