Copper Geographies: Ignacio Acosta

In this talk, Ignacio will talk about his project ‘Copper Geographies’ and how he explores the global flow of mined copper. He will describe how he presents this series of fieldwork explorations of geographically disparate landscapes historically connected by copper. Using research and investigative skills, he maps sites of transformation along the production network and commodity chain, documenting the mutation and transformation of copper from raw material to capital; through ore, smelted commodity, stock market exchanged value, assembled material and waste.

Copper Geographies discloses the uneven spatial conditions in which the material circulates by connecting the ecologies of resource exploitation in the Atacama Desert with the global centres of consumption and trade in Britain, and by making visible its return, hidden in manufactured goods, to the territories it originated from.

Ignacio will also discuss his latest project Not a Pearl, a new commission by the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur for the Mining Photography exhibition. The installation, consisting of 36 silkscreen prints and texts, questions the position role of the canton of Zug in the Swiss extractive landscape as global trading hub and offshore haven for shell companies.