Chris Donovan – The Cloud Factory « burn magazine

As a child, I looked up at the billowing smoke stacks of the refinery and asked my father if they made all of the world’s clouds. “No,” he replied. “They make money.” I grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick – an industrial city on the east coast of Canada – bookended by Canada’s largest oil refinery and a pulp mill owned by the same billionaire family. Despite the enormous wealth controlled by the Irving family, we also have the highest rate of child poverty in Canada, at around 50%. This billionaire family also owns every newspaper in the province. The Cloud Factory project is my way of fighting against censorship and addressing the environmental and social implications of industrial classism on my community.