If «apocalypse» from the Greek means to open up, to remove the cover, then processes based on fossil resources are truly apocalyptic.

Entropy is inherent in hydrocarbons, but only isolated manifestations of an object widely dispersed in time and space are available to the eye. Nevertheless, a karst failure of permafrost responds to a coal mine. Seeping through the machinery of economics, oil dissolves reality like a melting glacier. Soil exposes millennia-old histories of catastrophe, and, at the same time, a distant future that has already penetrated the present in ever-accelerating decay.

Alexander Nikolsky is an artist, researcher and teacher from the coal-rich Kuzbass region of Western Siberia. He works with photography, video and objects. Rooted in the philosophical traditions of «dark ecology» and «flat ontologies», his work explores relationships between human, things and nature, where physical space, objects and human practices act as active and equal participants in the interaction.