MAN & MINING
MAN & MINING
MAN & MINING
Global extraction and its impact on people and nature
1 June 2024–1 September 2024
Ore shed
Opening: Friday, 31 May 2024, 7.00 p.m.
In the light of the world’s rapidly growing population and expanding consumption, the need to extract raw materials poses ever-greater ecological, economic, political and social problems on a global scale. In particular, unsustainable mining practices and the exploitation of ecological systems and local communities come with enormous environmental and social costs that burden current and future generations. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet the global demand for raw materials. For example, a whole variety of metals are now needed to effect the transition to sustainable forms of energy with the help of renewable power.
The exhibition MAN & MINING at the Völklinger Hütte World Heritage Site explores the human factor in the extraction of raw materials and the mining business – the human resources that first enable the industrial appropriation of land above and below ground. Whether the continued mining of iron ore and coal, which gave rise to the former Völklingen Ironworks, or the extraction of gold, silver, manganese or lithium, which are vital for electromobility and electronic devices such as tablets and smartphones – the exhibition firmly adopts the perspective of the people involved in, and impacted by, the extraction of raw materials.
MAN & MINING brings together photographs, found art and installation artworks from Unknown Fields (AU/UK), Danny Franzreb (AT), Johnny Haglund (NO), Pieter Hugo (ZA), Lu Guang (CN), Andrea Mancini (LU), Lisa Rave (DE), Sebastião Salgado (BR) and Gabriella Torres-Ferrer (PR) in an exhibition landscape specially designed for the Ore shed.
An exhibition of the Völklinger Hütte World Heritage Site, in cooperation with the Museum of Work in Hamburg (first exhibition location: 17.11.2023–1.05.2024).
MAN & MINING_Press text for download
Download (doc | 61 KB)Images
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Ilakaka Gem Fields, Madagascar, 2018 The photo is part of the art project ALL UP IN MY GRILL by the artist collective Unknown Fields. It addresses the working conditions in the gemstone mines of Ilakaka in Madagascar. Wages there are so low that people are used instead of machines for even the simplest tasks.
© Toby Smith, Unknown Fields -
Lu Guang, Worker in a small smeltering factory, Wuhai City, Inner Mongolia, 2005 Photojournalist Lu Guang focuses on the consequences of geo-resource extraction and the associated environmental destruction in industrial China.
© Lu Guang (Contact Press Images) -
Lisa Rave, Europium, Filmstill, 2014 Screenshot from Lisa Rave's video installation ‘Europium’, in which the artist explores the element of the same name. This is a rare earth with fluorescent properties that is used to produce colour displays or to guarantee the authenticity of euro banknotes.
© Lisa Rave
Contact
![ArminLiedinger](/public/assets/Ansprechpartner/ArminLiedinger__ScaleWidthWzM1MF0.jpg)
ArminLiedinger
Dr. Armin Leidinger
Communication / Presse
Telephone: +49 (0) 6898 / 9 100 151
armin.leidinger@voelklinger-huette.org