Petro-Drift

In Petro-drift (2025), the Black Sea becomes both witness and archive—an ancient body absorbing the toxic residues of contemporary geopolitics and petro-capitalist collapse. This video installation captures the aftermath of the 2024 oil spill in the Kerch Strait, where a decaying Russian river tanker—repurposed for open sea operations as part of the so-called “shadow fleet,” built in 1969—ruptured during a storm, releasing petroleum products into the sea.

Filmed along the Varna coast in early 2025, the work documents not only the visible contamination—the sheen of oil combined with the viscous drift of sunscreen and sweat—but also overlays the motion vectors of the digital recording itself. This dual-layered approach exposes the invisible currents: both the physical flows of polluted water and the algorithmic tracing of movement within the digital eye. The drift refers not only to the literal movement of oil across the sea but to a broader existential drift: of nations disavowing ecological responsibility, of bodies dissolving into byproducts, of systems slowly eroding under their own weight.

Official reports claimed the vessel “sustained damage after running aground.” Environmental organizations warned of a potential ecological catastrophe across the Black Sea, while Bulgarian authorities dismissed the risk of heavy fuel oil reaching national waters. The piece speculates on a Black Sea coastline where folklore, environmental decay, and hyperstitional futures intertwine. The Black Sea, historically a site of myth and commerce, is reframed as a primordial soup of late-capitalist secretion—where the aftershocks of geopolitical maneuvers manifest not in headlines, but in the slow, shimmering suffocation of ecosystems.

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