Planetarische Bauern

What is the ground, what lies beneath it – and who has the right to use it, and for what purpose? Conceptual artist Lara Almarcegui (born 1972 in Zaragoza, Spain) explores the materials and processes of mining and urban development. While conducting research in her adopted home of Rotterdam, she discovered that the extraction rights to the entire subsoil of the city were held by a single company, the locally based oil giant Shell. This prompted her to begin acquiring and documenting the subsoil mining rights beneath various exhibition venues, using a series of artistic works to highlight this aspect of land use and ownership. For Planetary Peasants, she has reversed this approach. Instead of documenting existing ownership, she speculates on the possibilities of repurposing the surfaces formed by mining residues for, say, agriculture. Together with geologists from the RBFK Mansfeld Regional Society for Education, Research and Competence Development, she mapped the new surfaces produced by spoil heaps across Germany. Could they constitute a new kind of commons?