Arts Thread

At the Dexing Copper Mine in China, copper mining has marked the landscape with infertility and toxicity. Despite these harsh conditions, mine workers have taken up part-time gardening on this very land, engaging in the almost paradoxical act of nurturing the soil that their primary occupation continues to degrade. Exploring the interconnectedness between the miners and the land through this duality of mining and gardening, I delve into the complex exchanges between what people extract from the land and what the land, in its altered state, gives back. By engaging with the miners who have woven gardening into their lives, I seek to uncover the personal narratives that thread through their daily experiences, reflecting on their bond with the transformed land beneath their feet, and their collective struggle between economic reliance and environmental disruption. Using a mixed-media approach that combines photography, video documentation, and copper plate etching prints made from tailing sand collected from the mine, this project investigates the interactions between human and nonhuman forces that are central to the landscape’s infertility.