Rachel Boynton on energy production and individual wealth

The Five Thousand Pound Life: The Energy Issue, The Energy Issues Panel (Part 3)

May 10, 2014

Filmmaker Rachel Boynton screens the trailer for her documentary Big Men, which follows oil company Kosmos Energy as it discovers and develops the first commercial oil field off the Ghanaian coast. For Boynton, energy production is a profit-driven activity pursued for the individual attainment of wealth. The panel follows with discussion of the need to shift the focus from this individual pursuit to the collective good in order to change patterns of energy consumption.

In addition to her role as Producer and Director of Big Men, Boynton also produced and directed Our Brand Is Crisis, winner of the International Documentary Association’s Best Feature Documentary Award.

The Five Thousand Pound Life: The Energy Issue was a symposium on energy and architecture organized by The Architectural League and the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) in May 2014.

The Energy Issues panel brought together a diverse group of architects and academics along with a filmmaker and a journalist to each present an idea on energy through his or her particular lens.