Southern Illinois University Mass communications professor Tom Atwood discovered beauty in the Wood River Refinery.

He began by photographing young women in front of the refinery and at first, it was nothing more than an urban backdrop for senior portraits, but it soon became much more.

Atwood said an English professor at McKendree University saw these portraits and told him it reminded her of an Allen Ginsberg poem, “In Back of the Real,” a poem which was about seeing beauty in unexpected, industrial places.

“When she sent me that poem I thought, ‘That’s exactly what this is,’” Atwood said. “Then I started to think about how you could create a series of pictures that would show this contrast between what people think of as beautiful, say a beautiful woman, but then to also somehow show the refinery in a way that is beautiful.”

Atwood said many see the refinery as an eyesore, but ever since he saw it through his son’s eyes, he had always seen it as something quite beautiful.

“When we first moved here, he was 3 or 4 and we would drive past the refinery on the way to Alton,” Atwood said. “My wife’s in the car looking at it thinking, ‘Oh my god. We live next to this? This horrible industrial place.’ But he was looking out the window in his car seat at it and said, ‘Dad, we are lucky to live here aren’t we?’ That’s what got me thinking maybe it is kind of a beautiful, awful place.”

Atwood said after he was sent the poem, he began thinking this project could become something more, possibly even an exhibit.

“The executive director of the Edwardsville Art Center saw the pictures and suggested it could become an exhibit and it became a good reason to do [the project],” Atwood said. “One reason I take photos is to create art and to have people see the art. So instead of me just shooting as a hobby, it gave it a real purpose.”

However, the entire project was not smooth sailing for Atwood. As it turns out, the refinery does not like having its picture taken and will take great measures to make sure this does not happen. The refinery has bought lots of land surrounding the complex in order to prevent things of this sort from happening.

Atwood said local police would stop him soon after he arrived on the site, telling him the refinery would confiscate his camera if he continued taking photos. Police and security told him he faced these restrictions due to the Patriot Act.

“Under the Patriot Act, which was put in place after 9/11, if certain strategic areas or energy places think someone is doing something suspicious on their property, they can take these extra steps,” Atwood said. “He said they could think I was doing something suspicious, like mapping the refinery, and could come out and confiscate the camera.”

Atwood said the first time he was stopped and told about this issue, he asked the officer what he would do if he were in Atwood’s position.

“He said, ‘Well first of all I would stay on public property or private property that you have permission to be on, and I would be as inconspicuous as possible,’” Atwood said. “So that’s the approach I took after that, to always shoot on public property and I did try to be inconspicuous, which often meant shooting someplace quickly and getting out.”

Atwood said he was stopped a total of six times by police officers, refinery security or both.

“The last time was the worst, it was two security and one South Roxana police officer,” Atwood said. “That’s when they said they had put me on the homeland security list, which was a bluff. To me, that was intimidation or bullying almost, but it did stop the project for awhile because I did not want to be on that list.”

Atwood said the project started up again when Atwood’s brother posted the story to Facebook and said to contact the refinery. Atwood ended up getting a meeting with the refinery to discuss the issue and come to a potential agreement.

“For the last three shoots, there was an agreement that if I told them in advance where I was going to be, that there were certain areas I could shoot on and they wouldn’t call out the security,” Atwood said. “They said they are trying to stay under the radar; they don’t want attention drawn to the refinery so that somebody might then see it or think of it as a terrorist threat.”

Atwood said most of the shoots were done without notifying the refinery because he did not feel it was necessary.

“I do understand a citizen’s rights under the First Amendment and free speech, and I felt that there was no reason to be notifying a corporation on what I planned to do on public property,” Atwood said. “So I made a point not to call them because I didn’t feel it was right or necessary. I didn’t want them involved in the project in any way. Afterwards, I didn’t really like the agreement because then I was shooting at areas that they had designated.”

Atwood said while the threats slowed him down, they did not stop him from completing his project.

“It was pretty much done at that point,” Atwood said. “A lot of people had contacted me who wanted to be in it so I had plenty of pictures by that time. But I still had people who wanted to do it, so that’s why I did the rest of them after the agreement.”

Atwood said he would send out invitations to people he thought might be good or who may be interested in participating.

“In the invitation, it was always presented as a collaboration,” Atwood said. “I would say, ‘Do you want to do it? And if so, whatever you wear is up to you. I’m just trying to show a contrast between you and the refinery.’ This way, I thought I would have a lot of different looks. However, I shot some people that I didn’t know; some would say, ‘A friend of mine did it or I saw pictures, can I be in it?’”

Mass communications professor Suman Mishra said she volunteered as a model because she is  interested in photography and wanted to see what it is that Atwood really does.

“This is not something I’ve ever done. It’s not something I’m comfortable with, but I just wanted to have fun and to push myself to do something different that I wouldn’t normally do,” Mishra said. “Tom is really good in the sense that he really does make you very comfortable so it doesn’t feel like you are actually posing. So I’m happy for him. I’ve been seeing him do this for awhile and the exhibit is like a culmination of his work.”

Atwood said the exhibit will be a one-man exhibit made up of about 50 framed photos.

“The point of the exhibit is to sort of explore this contrast in beauty, explore the different kinds of beauty,” Atwood said. “Hopefully, they can expect to find beautiful, interesting photographs that maybe they did not expect. What is maybe surprising to some people is how beautiful the refinery can be.”

Mass communications professor Cory Byers and SIUE alumna Ashley Seering decided it would be fascinating to create a documentary to go along with the photos at the exhibit.

Byers said he and Seering wanted to add context to the exhibit through their documentary.

“We thought it’d be nice to have a short video to play there so people could get an understanding of why he did it,” Byers said. “I think if people come in and watch it before going through the exhibit, they’ll get a better understanding of what it’s about and what the point was from Tom’s perspective. Then maybe they’ll be able to appreciate the photos a little more.”

Seering, a former Alestle employee, said the idea for the documentary sparked after Atwood posted the story of his project online.

“A lot of people were asking questions about it and he had kind of explained it but it was hard to get all of the details, so I just always thought it would make a good story,” Seering said. “The point of the documentary is to tell the story behind the photos.”

Seering said they tried to capture every aspect of the process.

“We did one interview with Tom and we did some with the models that actually participated in the photo shoots, just to get their side of it,” Seering said. “Then we went out one evening when he was doing his last photo shoot at the refinery, just sort of to give people a live sense of what Tom was putting into the project.”

Seering said they are planning to produce two separate documentaries; one focused more on the art, which will be shown on a loop at the exhibit and one looking into the controversy, which will be posted online.

Atwood said he learned many things throughout this project, one of which was not only how deeply some people feel about the First Amendment, but also how strongly he felt about it.

“I never had to deal with this before, what I thought was a complete interference with a citizen’s rights,” Atwood said. “But people also feel really strong on the other side, too. Even a corporation has a right to security or invasion of privacy. I think I also learned about what you can and can’t do under the Patriot Act and what your rights are. You really do have to be careful in the decisions you make about any kind of journalistic or artistic enterprise because you can run into trouble.”

Atwood said he hopes people approach the exhibit with an open mind.

“Not only open minded in the way I went about shooting, that not everybody agrees with, but also just open to seeing the refinery as something other than just an eyesore or a bad corporation,” Atwood said. “I never really looked at it that way. I’ve always been fascinated by it, always thought it was beautiful; again, in a terrible, almost apocalyptic way. But I think if they go into the exhibit with an open mind about all of that, about this idea of beauty and what is beautiful, then I think it’ll be an interesting thing.”

“The Refinery Project: Images of Beauty and Industry by Tom Atwood” will open to the public July 18 through Aug. 22, with an opening reception Friday, July 22 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Edwardsville Art Center.

Caitlin Grove

Via alestlelive.com