Movements from below
2022
“[…] But it all leads to one question: Can a sustainable green revolution be built without the exploitation of others?”*
Demands for minerals like cobalt are expanding to produce the technologies needed to support the “green” revolution. Such did the demand for coal back in the days of the industrial revolution. The collectively experienced performance “Movements from below” activates a critical reflection about the labour conditions of miners. By taking the interconnection of workers' embodied routines from the industrial revolution to current day miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo as entry point, the work negotiates the relation between the past and the present, the “here” and the “there”. And prompts the question, why the energy solutions of the future are based on the continuous violence and injustices of the past?
The performance was commissioned by CID Grand-Hornu (BE) and took place on September, 24th 2022 as part of the exhibition “Au Charbon! Pour un design post-carbone” (“At the coalface! Design in a post-carbon age”) curated by Giovanna Massoni and Amandine David.
*Jamal Osman, journalist-filmmaker,
in the documentary “Toxic Cost of Going Green”
by Unreported World. Available on youtube.
Routine of digging, Movements from below.
Routine of carrying, Movements from below.
Routine of bending down and crawling, Movements from below.
Routine of drinking and sensing, Movements from below.
Movement poster, gesture excerpts of visual research.
Movement poster, motion visualisations & references.