"María-Elena Pombo has created "petroleum weavings," turning threads made from oil into elaborate yarnlike wall hangings. Oil, she told us, has shaped her life. Her father, an oil engineer, met her mother after he moved to Cabimas, an oil town. Because of Venezuela's oil wealth, Pombo, now 37 years old, studied for free at an excellent public university in Caracas."
"For decades, all Venezuelans enjoyed the perks of living in a land where oil was a birthright. They could fill their cars for almost nothing. Education and other public services were heavily subsidized as well. Academics might argue over the wisdom of the state's largess. But people expected, at the very least, affordable gas as a material benefit from the nation's abundance of oil."
María-Elena Pombo transformed oil into textile threads and yarnlike wall hangings. Oil shaped familial and educational opportunities through an oil-engineer father and free university education funded by petroleum revenues. For decades Venezuelans accessed heavily subsidized public services and almost-free gasoline, creating expectations of material benefits from national oil abundance. A U.S. military intervention aimed in part to seize Venezuela's vast reserves, with public statements about using and taking oil drawing accusations of imperialism. Some Venezuelans and opposition figures welcomed the strike, reflecting complex attitudes that view oil as both a source of pride and a contested economic prize.
Read at The Atlantic
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