This Rare Earth
Stories from below
ed. by Ils Huygens, Karen Verschooren

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Editor(s)

Ils Huygens, Karen Verschooren

Publication

Leuven : STUK, 2018

Scope

111 Pages, illustrated, 21 cm.

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Ever since J.M.W. Turner’s interest in the geological sublime at the latter half of the nineteenth century, the geological world has never ceased to fascinate artists. Nevertheless, there currently seems to be a vivid revival of the topic, most notably in the context of the Anthropocene discussion. It is precisely within this momentum that the exhibition This Rare Earth — Stories from Below resided. The show opened on 14 February 2018 at the STUK Leuven (BE), in the frame of the Artefact yearly festival. The overarching theme for this edition was the deep underground of the earth as an (in)finite source of minerals, often related to global political controversies. Economies of mineral extraction today induce a complex network of actors, one where humans and non-humans hold equal sway, a reality with which several artistic propositions grapple.This Rare Earth — Stories from Below directs our gaze down to our feet, to the geological materials that lie beneath the earth’s surface. The exhibition and festival gave voice to the stories told by these geological materials, conflict minerals and metals, and rare earth elements. The artworks involved focus on the political, economic and ecological implications of their circulation; from mining, processing, and trading, to use, and recycling. And they reconnect the elements of earth with their cosmic origins: ‘as above, so below’.

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Person as subject

Otobong Nkanga, Ilana Halperin, Julian Charrière, Justin Bennett, Cecilia Jonsson, Prabhakar Pachpute & Rupali Patil, Maarten Vanden Eynde, Unknown Fields, Füsun Türetken, Lise Autogena  & Joshua Portway , Susanne Kriemann, Lara Almarcegui, Sissel Marie Tonn, Milo Rau , Ursula Biemann (CH) & Mo Diener, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Kirstie van Noort & Xandra van der Eijk

Keywords

installation , geology , anthropocene , sound art

Location

Cabinet 11 - 4: Antropoceen