Emancipation of the Living

Alto Tâmega no Chtuluceno is a multi-part installation that addresses the steep growth of mining activities in the north of Portugal. These mega-projects, introduced as if they were part of the fight against climate change, follow the extractivist logic of the Capitalocene, only bringing exacerbated environmental destruction and contamination. ETC draw from Donna Haraway’s concept of the Chtulucene, put forth in her seminal text Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene (2016), in which Haraway frames a possibility of thinking-with humans and non-humans in times of extinction and loss. Haraway advocates for ‘making kin,’ meaning the creation of new kinds of relations between humans and more-than-humans.

The work is a semi-fictional documentation of the region of Alto Tâmega. A large map traces the various mining sites that are existing or in planning, as well as its surrounding environment. Next to it, a wall of reports, mostly risk and environmental impact assessments, taps into a wealth of current activities and related corruption. The second part consists of a series of photographs taken in the region—landscapes, details, objects, flora, fauna—accompanied by pages of fictional reports crafted from the Chtulucene, where in three instances, three different species were able to stop or hinder the mining activities. These humorous examples of human and non-human collaboration against environmental destruction, all based on facts, form a powerful counter-narrative of territory resistance. 

Ana Salazar, curator, Museum for the Displaced