INHABITANTS - PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
Mining for Ringwoodite (2016) 3’48’’, colour, sound
Mining for Ringwoodite compares the 2014 geological discovery of “fossilized” water found in the interior of a diamond-type mineral—termed Ringwoodite—in Brazil, with the prospects of mining on the moon or asteroids as announced by private companies in recent years. Ringwoodite is only found in the earth’s transition zone, between 410 and 660 kilometers below the earth’s surface. Given that water scarcity will only worsen throughout the twenty-first century, this episode speculates on a near future in which ringwoodite as well as rare minerals found in nearby asteroids will be the objects of a new mining economy. In this future, the earth’s deepest hydrological interior and outer space become paralleled capitalist frontiers.
About: INHABITANTS
Pedro Neves Marques (b. Lisbon, lives in New York) is a writer and visual artist. He is the editor of the book, The Forest and the School: Where to Sit at the Dinner Table? (2015), an anthology on anthropology and Brazilian Antropofagia, and the author of the fiction books Morrer na América (2017) and The Integration Process (2012). He was a guest-editor for e-flux Journal: Supercommunity for the 65th Venice Biennale: All The World’s Futures (2015), and writes regularly for other magazines and books. Among other venues, he has exhibited at PAV Parco Arte Vivente (Turin), Sursock Art Museum (Beirut), e-flux (New York), Kadist Art Foundation (Paris), Sculpture Center (New York), the 12th Cuenca Biennial (Cuenca), EDP Foundation (Lisbon) and Serralves Museum for Contemporary Art (Oporto). Together with artist Mariana Silva, he runs inhabitants, an online channel for exploratory video and documentary reporting (http://inhabitants-tv.org/).
Mariana Silva (b. Lisbon, lives in New York) is a visual artist. Among other venues she has exhibited or screened her work at
Gwangju Biennale (South Korea, 2016), Moscow Biennale (Russia, 2016), EDP Foundation (Lisbon, 2015), Astrup Fearnley Museum (Oslo, 2015), Parkour (Lisbon, 2014), e-flux, New York (2013), Indie Film Festival (Lisbon, 2012), Whitechapel Gallery (London, 2011), Kunsthalle Lissabon, (Lisbon, 2011), and Serralves Museum for Contemporary Art (Oporto, 2010). Together with artist and writer Pedro Neves Marques, she runs Inhabitants, an online channel for exploratory video and documentary reporting (http://inhabitants-tv.org/).