Our exponential demand and reliance on technology has culminated in an insatiable appetite to mine copper, leaving widespread terrestrial scars and acid polluted waters. The ‘green’ transition will only put more pressure on the environment and its inhabitants, and growing public discontent is at the heart of this conflict. Residents and workers are literally gasping for air due to ecological violations. The landscape is shattered in pieces, decimated, injected with toxic chemicals, poisoning the inhabitants and destroying their immediate world. The actions of mining companies have resulted in untold misery due to the destruction of homelands. Chemicals are used to leach the mineral out of ore, and exposed water is forever contaminated. 

 

Originally intended to depict a flag, and with its colliding material histories, this work is an inquiry into the horrors of mining copper, and questions who benefits and after 8,000 years of extraction, whose responsibility is it to remediate the land.

 

The Jacquard loom inspired early modern computation, programmed via a system of interchangeable punch cards, the loom was able to perform tasks in order to make complex fabrics. Hand woven in linen and copper, this weave has been submerged in an electrified sulphuric acid and copper sulphate solution. The conductive weave attracts copper atoms, attaching where the capacity is greatest, forming crystalline nodules.