Overline: Exhibition Launch

Headline: Some Western Gas Stations: First Experiments in Petronostalgia

Though we have not yet quite realized it, many of the elements of fossil fuel infrastructure most familiar to us will be lost in the transition to electro (and other) mobility. One of these will likely be the gas station. We simply won’t need to drive to a specific location in order to re-charge our cars. Also, many gas stations are located in densely populated corners of the city that could be more wisely put to other uses. This project thus involves long term visual research into what happens to the gas stations of today as fossil fuels fade from our cars (and perhaps, in fact, as the cars themselves fade from our streets). 

The project was begun in Berlin in 2020 and has since expanded to include gas stations and power plants every where. And, though it started as documentation, the project now skirts the edges of art. It turns out that taking pictures of gas stations takes a lot of skill from the photographer, they are messy, busy spaces, full of cars and people and signs and trees, there is thus an experimental and playful element to the works on display. Read more about the project here.

Photographs and Text by Gretchen Bakke

Join us on 6 June in the lobby of the RIFS Bank Building (Helmholtzstraße 5, Potsdam) for the opening of this exhibition.

Find out more about The Gas Station Project on our blog in English or German.