Marion Belanger: Rift | Fault

Rift/Fault documents the shifting edges of the North American Plate: the eastern boundary in Iceland, along the North Atlantic Rift where it meets the Eurasian Plate, and the western boundary in California, along the San Andreas Fault where it abuts the Pacific Plate. 

In Iceland, the land along the Rift is unstable and raw, as the two tectonic plate edges are pulling apart. MARION BELANGER’s images portray pipes that carry steam for geothermal electricity, hot pools, volcanic remnants, homes along the Ridge, and the raw, empty landscape. In California, where the Fault is characterized by dramatic earthquake activity, the ordered built environment seems to ignore the actuality of the land, a dangerous disconnect. 

In Rift/Fault, the pairing of images, one from each tectonic edge, allows for a dialogue between the wild and the contained, the fertile and the barren, the geologic and the human. These dichotomies create a visual tension that elicits the uneasy relationship between geologic force, and the limits of human enterprise.