"Power to the People"
archival uv pigments on brushed aluminum
85"x30"
2018
shawn saumell

In Power to the People, an expansive electrical substation and transmission grid dominates a North Texas landscape, its towers and cables stretching outward in dense geometric repetition. Composited from photographs taken throughout the Dallas–Denton corridor, the image presents infrastructure not as background utility, but as monumental presence.

The intricate lattice of wires and pylons slices across the sky, transforming what might traditionally be considered visual obstruction into primary subject. Rather than omitting these structures to preserve a romanticized landscape, the work leans into their excess. The grid becomes rhythmic, almost ornamental — its repetition bordering on the absurd.

The title operates on multiple registers. “Power to the People” evokes chants of political revolution, while simultaneously referencing the literal transmission of electricity. The phrase gestures toward questions of authority, capital, and control: who generates power, who distributes it, and who ultimately benefits from its flow. Rendered in metallic material and saturated color, the infrastructure appears almost electroplated — luxurious, even seductive — complicating its environmental and physical implications.

Subtle interventions punctuate the scene: warning signs, circling birds, and reflective surfaces that momentarily reveal fragments of a more natural landscape. These quiet disruptions introduce tension beneath the formal order. The work acknowledges the indispensability of energy systems while also confronting their spatial, ecological, and bodily consequences.

Power to the People positions infrastructure as both necessity and imposition — a pervasive architecture of modern life that is so constant it often disappears from view, until it is deliberately seen.