Seeing Lithium Extraction : Countering the Myth of ‘Green’ Transition through Contemporary Art

Abstract: This thesis examines the intersection between lithium extraction and contemporary art through a visual semiotic analysis of three contemporary artworks: Unknown Fields’ We Power Our Future With the Breast Milk of Volcanoes, Marcela Magno’s Land [2] Litio, and Julian Charrière’s Future Fossil Spaces. It explores how lithium extraction is visualised in the selected artworks, what connotations can be extracted from them, the geopolitical dimension expressed in them, and how they relate to the myth of ‘green’ transition. This text takes a starting point in the notion of critical visualisations of extractivism in contemporary art as an urgent political, artistic, and ecological issue. Extractivism is a crucial concept in this thesis, and it is further explored through the intersection of art and extractivism in dialogue with previous research by, for example, Eray Çaylı, Macarena Gómez-Barris, and T.J. Demos. The artworld’s interest in lithium has grown in the last years, with cultural projects and exhibitions on lithium taking place in Sweden and the Netherlands, yet there are no academic texts that explore the intersection of lithium extraction and contemporary art. The aim of this thesis is to thoroughly examine this intersection through three contemporary artworks, to expand academic literature regarding this topic, but also to make the results available to curators, cultural workers, and artists who are currently developing cultural projects around lithium and its extraction. The results of the visual semiotic analysis demonstrated that all three of the artworks critically engaged with lithium extraction by visibilising either present or future green sacrifice zones. They all countered the myth of ‘green’ transition with different strategies: by showing the two-furthermost-apart links in the lithium supply chain, by recuperating Indigenous creation myths of the extracted landscapes, and by exploring the supposed intangibility of our ever-expanding digital world.