Nancy Valladares | Image Metabolisms

Nancy Valladares’ first solo exhibition explores connections between photography and fossil fuels. Framing coal as “buried sunshine,” the exhibition traces how ancient plant life, transformed through heat and pressure, underpins both extractive economies and photographic processes. Through materials such as bitumen, asphalt, metal plates, soil, sound and lavender oil, Valladares reveals the hidden chemical and corporate systems enabling visual culture. Referencing early heliography and coal extraction in Alberta, her evocative work links image-making to combustion, extraction and colonial erasure. saag.ca