Maarten Vanden Eynde

In Artefact 2018, the connections between man, earth and geological materials take centre stage. Under the title This Rare Earth - Stories from Below, the exhibition and festival will give voice to the stories told by geological materials, conflict minerals and -metals, and rare earth elements. The artworks involved focus on the political, economic and ecological implications of their circulation; from mining, processing, and trading, to use, and recycling. They allow us to question what our relation is or can be as humans vis-a-vis these materials.

Specific attention goes out to artist practices going beyond critical reporting, towards an embedded, involved way of relating to the geological turn. They shed light on otherwise invisible themes, create new narratives, or offer alternative concepts that can help us in creating a different understanding of or perspective on the global, political, economic and ecological tales of extraction and trade.


Maarten Vanden Eynde, Copper Country (El Morro, Chile), 2016


Maarten Vanden Eynde, Trinity Test (detail), 2016


Maarten Vanden Eynde, Manhattan Project, 2017 (photo: Gert Jan van Rooij)