In 2014, a hidden software was discovered in certain models of Volkswagen cars. This software manipulated air pollution tests conducted on vehicles from specific automakers. It was designed to identify when the standardized emissions test was being carried out and then modify the engine to emit lower levels of pollutants during the test. However, when these vehicles were driven under real-world conditions, they emitted significantly higher amounts of pollutants. This revelation caused the largest industrial scandal since World War II and severely shook the automobile industry. This scandal came to be known as Dieselgate.
True Colors, Mathieu Asselin’s latest work, is influenced by the Dieselgate scandal and reflects on the automobile industry’s destructive relationship with the environment. The project examines how the industry falsely portrays itself as eco-friendly to navigate the urgent socioeconomic and environmental challenges confronting humanity today.
Through the utilization of visual marketing tools employed by the industry, such as photography, colors, archival materials, and others, True Colors aims to challenge the industry’s environmental narrative. It confronts the industry’s contradictions, corporate and environmental scandals, lack of action, and its unsustainable vision for the future of human mobility.
Undefined Landscape Mercedes Class-E & EPY - Atacama Orange -Renault, 2023 © Mathieu Asselin / courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery
The project consists of a series of diptychs: landscapes printed using silk-screen technique. These landscapes are printed on high gloss colored steel plates, using black carbon-negative ink. The ink is produced from fine dust extracted from the exhaust pipes of Diesel vehicles. The overall presentation of the work is serene and comprises a colorful collection of picturesque natural scenes. Landscapes that were appropriated from the sales brochures of the cars involved in the Dieselgate scandal. The colors used in the prints incidentally bear the names of precious ecosystems. For example, a lake surrounded by pine trees is depicted in Volkswagen’s ‘Montana Green,’ a pristine mountaintop is covered in Renault’s ‘Glacier Blue,’ and a desert is bathed in BMW’s ‘Arizona Sun.’
In collaboration with a biologist, Asselin selected 257 of these colors and created a graphic representation illustrating the rising temperatures from 1880 to 2022. Colors such as ‘Alaska Blue’ represent the Victorian Age, while ‘Amazonia Green’ represents the mid-20th century. The more alarming ‘Coral Red’ signifies the present day.
Undefined Landscape Kia Rio & D7U - Planet Blue -Kia, 2023 © Mathieu Asselin / courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery
