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UNITY
-- Roman Keller has spent years looking for ways to
examine the environment through his art.
That search took Keller from his native Switzerland
to Unity College this week to retrieve an artifact that
Keller believes symbolizes a turning point in how we
view our world.
Keller and Christina Hemauer, a video artist and
teacher who, like Keller, lives in Zurich, arrived in
Unity on Monday to retrieve a solar panel that
then-President Jimmy Carter had installed above the west
wing of the White House during the energy crisis in
1979.
The solar panels, which were torn down during
renovations at the White House in the 1980s, were kept
in government storage in Virginia until Unity College's
Peter Marbach learned about the panels and brought them
to the college aboard a school bus about 15 years ago.
The panels, about 15 of which are still secured to
the roof above the dining hall, are no longer
functional, but they have been used to aid environmental
education since being brought to Unity, said Michael
"Mick" Womersley, interim provost.
Keller's journey to Unity began in April when, while
completing another project, he learned of the solar
panels' fate. To Keller, the panels represent Carter's
energy policy and the United States' commitment to wean
itself from its oil dependence.
Keller wonders what happened to that commitment, or
if it might even be in the process of being renewed.
To find out, later this week he and Hemauer, along
with Jason Reynolds, a former student, and current
student Sara Trunzo, will strap one of the solar panels
to the roof of their car and head south to the Jimmy
Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta. Along the way,
Keller hopes to talk to people involved in the White
House solar panel project, before leaving the panel for
display at the library.
A documentary of the trip is expected to be released
next summer.
"We think it's very symbolic," Keller said. "It's
more than the energy saved in the years it was on the
White House. It's a symbol of the energy future, or at
least the attempt of an energy future."
Keller's trip, and the documentary, began at Unity
College with on-camera discussions with those who recall
the panels' arrival at the school.
"For the college, it's a very important symbol,"
Hemauer said.
"It shows nobody else cared about it for the last 30
years," Keller added.
Keller also has already talked to a White House
photographer who was on the roof the day that Carter
introduced the panels to hundreds at a press conference.
Keller is hoping to talk to members of Carter's
administration as well.
Keller insists his documentary is not designed to
bludgeon people into changes of heart. Rather, he hopes
to provide a picture of the nation's energy policies in
the past and present and consider what it might be in
the future.
"What did we do in the last 30 years?" Keller asked.
"What can we do now? I want to bring people back to
those days."
There are similarities in the energy climate of the
1970s and today, he added.
Fuel prices are high, the Middle East is unstable,
and the president is calling for Americans to, as
President Bush said in his 2006 State of the Union
address, end its "addiction to oil."
"That was very similar to Carter," Keller said. "He
introduced the first program."
Womersley is thrilled the panels will be used to open
up a new dialogue.
"I think it's a very fitting time to educate about
renewable energy," he said. "There's a symbolic art to
this project."
A symbolism that made Keller travel all the way to
Maine from Switzerland.
"I think it was huge," he said. "For renewable
energy, it was the beginning. We also think it was a
very short time." |
