post atlas
Post Atlas project explores a constantly evolving territory: the extreme north of Chile, where mountains emerge and disappear, where the ground erodes, and where the landscape transforms at a dizzying pace on a geological time scale. This desert, described by Pablo Neruda in his collection Canto Generalas a «world laid bare,» turns out to be a place both raw and radical, where the human imprint, though subtle at first glance, shapes artificial landscapes of colossal magnitude.
Beneath the arid surface of the Atacama Desert, the soil harbors materials of great economic value: copper, gold, lithium, and saltpeter. These resources have drawn the attention of extractive industries, which, by digging open-pit mines, create artificial mountains and giant slag heaps. These formations result from a purely economic process, governed by global demand and the fluctuations of metal prices on financial market. The resulting landscapes are neither natural nor artificial in the strict sense but are the product of a complex interaction between geology and the industrialization driven by the global economy. The land laid bare by the mega open-pit mines stages the theater of irreversible extractivism, a territory that appears surreal, sketched by industry.
Post Atlas project sits at the intersection of several disciplines: video, cartography, sculptural installation, and documentary science fiction. It explores the connections between natural resource exploitation, the radical transformation of landscapes, and the cartographic representation of these changes. The aim is to make visible the geographical, ecological, and social impact of extractivism through the creation of experimental maps and an immersive video installation.
As part of this research, the first step is to map the ever-changing landscapes in collaboration with geographer and cartographer Philippe Rekacewicz. These experimental maps, far from being static representations, reflect the ongoing creation of artificial mountains and their evolution. The project aims to show how economic logic and the mining industry shape not only the local geography but also a new contemporary mythology, transforming landscapes into toxic sanctuaries that will remain as vestiges of our civilization.
The idea is to reinvent traditional cartography by combining it with a narrative and speculative dimension. These maps will become interpretive tools to understand, analyze, and anticipate the future of these landscapes, paving the way for new forms of geographic and artistic representation.
These artificial mountains are the result of a century of mining extraction, particularly in emblematic sites like the Chuquicamata mine, where the copper content in the ore has declined from 2% to less than 0.4% over the decades. This depletion of resources leads to increasingly intense exploitation of the land, and these artificial mountains continue to grow, constantly altering the desert’s topography. This phenomenon is a striking example of how natural resource extraction can shape a territory on a massive scale.
The evolution of these sites serves as a crucial case study for understanding how mines and their infrastructures transform the environment, creating new artificial reliefs often overlooked by traditional geographic analysis. Chuquicamata and Escondida perfectly embody the tensions between economic exploitation and territorial transformation.
As resources dwindle, mining industries are preparing to re-exploit older slag heaps, where copper concentrations remain significant. The maps of artificial mountains, created as part of «Post Atlas,» could become anticipatory tools, helping navigate these ever-changing landscapes. They unveil a potential future where these sacred slag mountains become industrial archaeological sites.
Despite their colossal scale, these artificial landscapes elude traditional geographical studies. As Pedro Alonso describes in his text “Mountaineering”, from AAfiles No. 66 (Jan./Jun.) 2013, “they are too artificial to be of interest to geographers but too natural to be of any relevance to architects or urban planners”. These territories occupy a gray area between industrial engineering and experimental cartography. Seen from above, the mines and slag heaps trace a wandering geometry, oscillating between map and plan. The topography is in constant flux, blurring the line between industrial projects and fixed landscapes.
One of the key challenges of the «Post Atlas» project is to capture these flows and their impact on geographical forms. The project questions how financial logic and humanity’s obsession with resource extraction reshape landscapes and ways of life. Through a cartographic analysis in collaboration with Philippe Rekacewicz, it highlights the role of global markets in the reconfiguration of the Atacama Desert’s terrain.
One of the key challenges of the «Post Atlas» project is to explore the future of these artificial mining landscapes, which represent a new typology of hybrid territory, situated between the natural and the artificial. These artificial mountains, overlooked by traditional geographers and urban planners, stand as the remnants of human activity that radically reshapes the Earth.
The project also questions the future of these landscapes once extractive activities have ceased. How will these territories be perceived in a post-extractive future? «Post Atlas» aims to map these changes, anticipating how these mountains will survive their own creation.
The project goes beyond merely describing these landscapes and focuses on the people who inhabit them. The men and women living in these remote regions are deeply connected to the extractive industry. They work in temporary towns set up near the mines and share a unique bond with these artificial mountains, which sometimes take on the form of sacred mountains in their imagination. Indeed, these masses of mining debris become monuments of the future, testaments to an industrial legacy that will outlive humanity.
The project thus weaves a connection between these artificial landscapes and the contemporary mythologies that could emerge around them. Through the stories of the workers, the audiovisual installation reveals the intimate narratives built around these sites, oscillating between reality and fantasy, between science fiction and documentary. The artificial mountains become archaeological remnants of a post-human future, imbued with meaning and memory.
These artificial mountains, outliving their original purpose, may become relics of a humanity whose legacy will be the radical transformation of ecosystems.
The project aims to be both documentary and speculative. The maps produced initially will serve as a foundation for creating a semi-fictional narrative, anticipating a future shaped by mining exploitation. This narrative could take the form of documentary science fiction, envisioning the legacy of mining territories in a «post-mine world.»