Workshop 1— Creative Public Engagement and Counter-mapping as Resistance

On the 26 February 2024 we held our first Extractivist Landscapes workshop in which we paired an academic and artist to analyse the entangled relations between the extractivist processes of mining and how artists and activists work to reimagine the potential futures of post-excavated landscapes. This workshop began with a presentation by Prof David Higgins (Leeds) on ‘Creative Public Engagement and Post-Extractivist Landscapes’. Reflecting on two UK-based research projects that enabled members of the public to develop creative responses to the more-than-human world, in the context of environmental crisis and nature disconnection, Prof Higgins inspired participants to consider how such work can help to address both the past and the future of post-extractivist landscapes, such as nature reserves in former mining areas.

The second part of the workshop, ‘Counter-mapping as resistance to extractivism’ was led by activist-artist and PhD researcher, V’cenza Cirefice (University of Galway). Participants explored extractivism and resistance through participatory mapping activities. We studied the community movement resisting gold mining in the Sperrin Mountains and anti-mining activism more broadly in Ireland. Counter-mapping asks us to explore other ways of relating to each other and the more-than-human.

V’cenza asked us individually to imagine a place of significance and what it would feel and look like if it became a site of extractivism. We then used watercolours, pencils, and collage techniques to create our individual maps, before coming together to discuss ways in which we could connect our individual maps to a wider story and map of anti/extractivism.