Statement
In Oil + Water, Kate Levy and Shanna Merola combine their photographic work to examine connections between the oil and gas industry, privatization of water, and heightened militarization of local police agencies. Through an investigation on the cause and effect of disaster economies, the work explores post-industrial landscapes marked by environmental collapse, political unrest and the resistance work of frontline communities. Together and separately, Levy and Merola have documented the water struggle in Detroit and Flint, Standing Rock, the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, New Orleans post Katrina and the Bakken Shale fracking boom in North Dakota.