“Three years ago we never thought that the mine company could come back.”
“That was one of the arguments used to open the mine again, there is Germanium, a rare element which is used in our technologies. To extract zinc could be only an excuse.”
Publication produced and designed by ZEST, edition of 50
While walking through the streets of Kelmis, I just could not ignore the
connection between the history of this town and my own everyday life.
And indeed that connection had been in my hands for days: a revelation
coming directly from the inside of my camera. Smartphones, cameras,
computers and other circuit-based devices have become the companions
of our daily routine. There are many things we don’t know about
the objects we use in our everyday needs: we don’t know where they
come from, who’s assembling them, or how do they affect our landscape
over the long term.
What feeds our desire to keep up with technology
is mining — and mining resembles capitalism in its full glory. Based on
aggressive extractions, mining activities have one simple goal: suck every
possible resource of capital, and then leave, off to another site where this
same procedure will be repeated. These dynamics are part of a bigger
power play between states and corporations, which determine the life
of unaware citizens. As consumers, we want to surround ourselves with
all the possible innovative items, but we do not understand the manufacturing
processes that lie behind the extraction of the components of
such items, nor how these processes end up affecting the lives of regular
people.
The narratives that characterized Kelmis, as well as other places, lay in
the circuits that connects us.
Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2019
Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2019
Bureau Europa, Maastricht, 2021
Bureau Europa, Maastricht, 2021
Vieille Montagne Museum, Kelmis, 2022
Vieille Montagne Museum, Kelmis, 2022
* Silent Canary published on KRZAK PAPIER, 2020. → krzakpapier.pl
* Silent Canary published on British Journal of Photography, Issue #7893: Out of Sight, 2020 → instagram/BJP
* Silent Canary published on BAOBAB Magazine, 2019. → baobabmagazine.eu
* Silent Canary shortlisted at the Unseen Dummy Award, 2019