Contemporary Art & Extractivist Culture

May 14, 2025 | Conferences

Contemporary Art & Extractivist Culture
1st International Conference
May 14-15, 2025. Faculty of Arts, University of Lleida; Faculty of Geography and History, University of Barcelona.

Extractivism refers to a mode of wealth accumulation based on the extraction of raw materials and more-than-human life forms for its commercialisation. As geographer David Harvey (2003) has argued, this process of accumulation relies on the dispossession of common goods through processes of privatisation, financialisation, crisis management and manipulation, and the state redistribution of income. The origin of this pattern goes back to the European colonisation of the Americas in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and the practices of plunder and expropriation of goods, bodies, and knowledges that this entailed. As semiotician Walter Mignolo (2007) maintains, the process of colonisation itself established the conditions for the extraction of resources and the enslavement of labour. Today, extractivism is more relevant than ever, at times even promoted by progressive governments who tend to invest more of the profits of extractivism into public services and social policies. However, despite the redistribution of wealth and social welfare that these governments preach, progressive extractivism continues to generate a profound impact on ecosystems and communities.

Although it is often framed as a fundamentally technical issue (as an ‘industry’), in reality extractivism is a multifaceted phenomenon, encompassing the fields of politics, economics, ecology, research and science, society and culture. These fields establish the conditions of possibility for the legitimisation and application of extractivism. Moreover, the implementation of these practices by governments is based on the argument that they help overcome poverty, generate jobs, and contribute to economic growth. Yet extractivism’s negative impact on ecosystems and people is all-encompassing, including the depletion of resources, loss of biodiversity, environmental pollution, production of large-scale waste, and dispossession of local communities’ territories. State and corporate responsibility for its impact is limited to compensation and restitution of damages, rendering the affected people and their territories effectively invisible. Extractivism has not only generated negative environmental impact; it has also produced citizen resistance through activism championing the discontinuation of predatory projects, the alleviation of the lives of communities suffering the consequences of extractivism, and the promotion of alternative practices rejecting a development model based on unlimited growth sustained by the intensive extraction and commodification of natural resources.

The 1st International Conference Contemporary Art & Extractivist Culture aims to generate a space for reflection and debate on how artistic practices can contribute understanding, critiquing and resisting extractivist dynamics in their multiple forms. The conference invites artists, art historians, critics, curators, philosophers, anthropologists, and other disciplines linked to the humanities and social sciences to develop presentations that explore the role of art in mapping processes and materialising alternatives to extractive capitalism. In order to encourage interdisciplinarity and collaboration between academic and citizen research, proposals will also be accepted from activist collectives or other social agents with or without institutional affiliation. Proposals should choose one or more of the thematic axes described above: natural extractivism, socio-cultural extractivism, epistemological extractivism, biotechnological extractivism and digital extractivism.

PROGRAMME

May 14, 2025. Aula Magna- Saló Víctor Siurana, Faculty of Arts, University of Lleida.

  • 9:00 – 9:10 a.m. Registration.
  • 9:10 – 9:30 a.m.

–Welcome. Prof. Natàlia Alonso, Vice-Rector for Research, Faculty of Arts, University of Lleida.
–Presentation of VIGEO-Art, Globalization, Interculturality, Dr. Nasheli Jiménez del Val, co-director of the conference.
–Presentation of the conference. Dr. Christian Alonso (Department of Geography, History and History of Art, University of Lleida), co-director of the conference.

Panel 1. Main speaker: Prof. Juan Martin Prada. Moderator: Dr. Nasheli Jiménez del Val.

  • 9:30 – 11:00 a.m. Prof. Juan Martín Prada (Universidad de Cádiz), Creación artística, capitalismo de datos y extractivismo digital. Keynote talk.
  • 11:00 h – 11:30 a.m. Cofee break.
  • 11:30 – 11:50 a.m. Nicolás Marín Bayona (Université Catholique de Louvain). Digital Art History como extractivismo epistémico: algoritmos, museos y la apropriación del saber visual.
  • 11:50 – 12:10 p.m. Dr. Ferran Lega Lladós (Escola Politècnica Superior, Universitat de Lleida). Procesos éticos en el extractivismo de datos de plantas en el arte contemporáneo.
  • 12:10 – 12:30 p.m. Dr. Janet Merkel (Technische Universität Berlin) & Aris Spentsas (artist). Challenging Extractivist Art Practices: The PLANT-Project and the Role of Permaculture in Regenerative Artistic Methodologies.
  • 12:30 – 12:50 p.m. Paula Fernández Álvarez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). Los estratos de la tierra son un museo revuelto». Imaginarios underground y comunidades imaginadas.
  • 12:50 – 1:30 m. Discussion.
  • 1:30 – 2:30 m. Lunch break.

Panel 2. Main speaker: Dr. Rick Dolphin. Moderator: Dr. Christian Alonso.

  • 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. Prof. Rick Dolphijn (University of Utrecht). Property or Possession. Rethinking the Land and the Colonial. Keynote talk.
  • 4:30 – 4:50 p.m. José Angulo & Dr. Quim Bonastra (Department of Geography, History and Art History, University of Lleida). Reivindicar el cuidado desde las periferias: “Consejo de Mujeres” como práctica de resistencia afectiva y ética comunitaria
  • 4:50 – 5:10 p.m. Ibai Gorriti (Critical Inquiry Lab _ Design Academy Eindhoven). The curatorial absorption, capture of radical aesthetics in the white cube.
  • 5:10 – 5:30 p.m. Pamela Cristina Cevallos Salazar (Faculty of Architecture, Design and Arts, Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador). Archaeologies of dispossession: Huaquería, collecting and artisanal memory in resistance.
  • 5:30 – 5:50 p.m. Dr. Mirko Nikolić (Södertörn University). Memoryscapes of extractivism, fascism and resistance: A mine project in the valley of Jadar in an internationalist perspective.
  • 5:50 – 6:30 p.m.

May 15, 2025. Jane Addams Room, Faculty of Geography and History, University of Barcelona.

  • 9:00 – 9:10 am. Registration.
  • 9:10 – 9:30 am.

–Welcome. Prof. Enric Ciurans, Director of the Department of Art History, University of Barcelona.
–Presentation of VIGEO-Art, Globalization, Interculturality research group. Prof. Anna Maria Guasch (Department of Art History, University of Barcelona), and Dr. Nasheli Jiménez del Val, co-directors of the conference.
–Presentation of the conference. Dr. Christian Alonso (Department of Geography, History and History of Art), University of Lleida, co-director of the conference.

Panel 3. Main speaker: Dr. Joaquín Barrientos. Moderator: Prof. Anna Maria Guasch.

  • 9:30-11:00 a.m. Extracción y postnaturaleza. Redefiniendo la historia del arte en la era del brutalismo energético. Dr. Joaquín Barriendos (University of Guadalajara). Keynote talk.
  • 11:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. coffee break
  • 11:30 – 11:50 am. Prof. David Castañer (Université Paris Panthéon Sorbonne, HiCSA_Histoire Culturelle et Sociale de l’art). The Artist as Extractivist? / El artista como extractivista?
  • 11:50 a.m. – 12:10 p.m. Dr. Miriam del Saz (Universitat Politècnica de València) and Dr. Chiara Sgaramella (Universitat de Barcelona). El saber a les mans. Arte público y experimentación gráfica en escucha del territorio.
  • 12:10 – 12:30 p.m. Jack Isles, Alagie Jinkang, Lorenzo Pezzani & Sarah Walker – LIMINAL Lab (University of Bologna). Emptying the Sea.
  • 12:30 – 12:50pm. Dr. Yadis Vanessa Vanegas-Toala (Universidad Politécnica Salesiana) & Dr. Christian León (Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar). Cine eco-territorial, memoria y extractivismo en la Amazonía ecuatoriana: Una análisis sobre Allpamanda (2023) del colectivo Tawna.
  • 12:50 – 1:10 p.m. Prof. Jonathan Harris (University for the Creative Arts). Apocalyptic Photographs: Representation of Extractive Hells in the Conflicts of Globalization.
  • 1:10 p.m. – 1:50 p.m. Discussion.

Panel 4. Round Table. Moderator: Dr. María Íñigo Clavo.

  • 17:00-18:30 h. Minería, Sequía, Colonialismo. Participants: Dr. Bárbara Fluxá (Universitat Complutense de Madrid), Dra. Paula Bruna (artist and researcher), Gabriela Bettini (artist and researcher).

***

Contemporary Art & Extractivist Culture
1st International Conference
May 14 and 15, 2025. Faculty of Arts, University of Lleida; Faculty of Geography and History, University of Barcelona.
Direction: Dr. Christian Alonso (Universitat de Lleida), Dra. Anna Maria Guasch (Universitat de Barcelona), Dra. Nasheli Jiménez del Val (Art, Globalization, Interculturality).
Organised by: Research and development project “Visualidad y Geoestética en la Era de la Crisis Ecosocial” (VIGEO, PID2022-139211OB-I00), Universitat de Barcelona.
In collaboration with: Facultat de Lletres, Universitat de Lleida, youth participation project “La voz de la juventud en la era de la inteligencia artificial: retos y oportunidades”, Erasmus+, European Union (KA154-YOU-7D65C45B), Regidoria de Joventut, Ajuntament de Lleida.
Coordination: Alessia Gervasone, Anna Pérez Milán.
Image: Bàrbara Fluxà, Paisaje minado. Dibujando la destrucción de otro tiempo, 2013.

Registration and contact:

Participants interested in attending can register at the following form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdM-wL5BDVERq7oX0GB4NtcSS5vka4p4yuAv2dkoIChtBZ07g/viewform?usp=header

For any other enquiries, please contact [email protected]