Beautiful Destruction – Alberta Oil/Tar Sands
Climate Change. Fossil Fuel. The Dilemma of Our Time.
Canada’s boreal forest. The largest industrial project on earth.
the book
the photographs




























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the Beautiful Destruction book

The book’s 232 photographs were from the artist’s small plane, as the tar/oil sands emerged from political and environmental obscurity to becoming ground-zero for the dilemma of our time: climate change in the face of a global, carbon based, petroleum driven economy.
Beautiful Destruction takes the reader directly to the massive bitumen mines, tailings ponds, steam piping and refineries set within the boreal forests of northern Canada. The oil/tar sands are where the controversial pipelines at the centre of the climate change debate in America originate.
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Purchase Limited Edition Prints & Beautiful Destruction book
Purchase autographed or personally inscribed copies of Beautiful Destructionbook on this website or at quality bookstores. $75
Limited numbered edition (only 350 copies) of Beautiful Destruction is available exclusively from Louis Helbig. $150
Numbered books may be purchased with a limited edition photographic print. $500
Numbered, limited edition prints of various sizes are available from $175 (11x16in) to $3,500 (40x60in) directly from Louis Helbig or from fine art galleries featuring his work.
Louis Helbig
Beautiful Destruction is about engaging, not alienating. In Canada, it’s helping defuse a highly polarized, divisive issue and create space for substantive discussion of the oil/tar sands. Internationally, it’s raising awareness of a massive, industrial project in the Canadian wilderness at the centre of one of the dilemmas of our time: grappling with the reality of climate change versus a petroleum driven global economy.
sixteen diverse essays
The book takes advantage of the public space created when art engages the imagination of the viewer. Beautiful Destruction takes that anunprecedented step further, expanding this public space with 16 essays by prominent individuals from environment and industry, from local to international, to share their insights, ideas and opinions about the oil/tar sands.
This is the first fair forum on the tar/oil sands. Helbig gave each writer the same space and complete editorial control over their own contribution.
The essays, like the photographs, reflect the myriad of complexities and contradictions inherent to any human endeavour, especially one as large as the oil/tar sands. Some are particularly Canadian: grappling with First Nations treaty rights, the cultural impact of boom towns or the pitfalls of exporting a raw resource to another country for processing. The underlying tension, however, of grappling with the reality of climate change versus a carbon based global economy is the crucial dilemma of our time. MORE about Essay Contributors