Critical Raw Cartographies Research Residency

One-week residency, March 24-29, 2024

Luxembourg

Organized by Charles Rouleau (Casino Display) and Jeff Diamanti (University of Amsterdam)

By 2050, the European Union will demand upwards of ninety times more rare earth elements for digital technologies and renewable energy infrastructure than today. All of those materials will be mined from the earth. Until now, nearly all of the supply of these and other critical materials have been supplied by the Chinese mining sector. In March 2023, the European Union passed the “Critical Raw Materials Act” which seeks to counter European dependence on the import of rare earths and critical raw minerals. Instead of moving away from the logic of extraction intrinsic to the climate emergency, this act aims at fast-tracking the growth and exploitation of new mining sites in Europe and its map of influence. A new cartography of critical extraction will mark the “energy transition,” and the political power of Europe will depend on the economic security of these supply chains. 

How do we build on the militancy of restorative solidarities negotiated in the present tense of past violences and move toward pre-emptive reciprocities, reading with the extractive gaze of weaponized supply chains in order to anticipate intimate ecologies and dispossessive legacies about to get written? As long cycles of accumulation shift with the tectonics of transition cultures, what future archives of violence and power are hinged propositionally to the nomos of European sovereignties?

This one-week residency hosted at Casino Display - Space for artistic research in Luxembourg City gathers ten researchers to specifically map the emergent cartography and financial infrastructure of these supply channels. Our cohort includes junior researchers (rMA, PhD and early-career) from disciplines of design, artistic research, critical geography, environmental humanities, economics, and international relations. Work conducted during the one-week residency in March will seed future collaborations and extended research collaboration.