Mine

Abstract

To ‘mine’ is to extract elements of the earth’s physical materials—but it also describes data drawn from the landscape of information. The exhibition acts, in the words of the artist, as a ‘theme park to extraction’, exploring not just the political and environmental significance of mining, but also the role of work and value throughout human history, and in the rapidly changing present. It includes a giant version of a classic Australian board game; an operating shop-front for Extractor, another board game that doubles as an exhibition catalogue; life-size replicas of machines and products used in automated mineral mining; and a human-sized Amazon worker cage, home to the proverbial canary in the coalmine… Just one of the birds that embodies our worries about the fallout of rapid change.