Green Paradox features Karen Luza, a queer activist and equine therapist from the Lickanantay Indigenous community of San Pedro de Atacama, who is fighting to protect water from extractivism. The video changes the “green transition” narrative, which claims that a substantial increase in metal mining is necessary to meet the material needs of renewable energy technologies and associated infrastructure. It acknowledges the Atacama Desert as a pluriversal territory where multiple worldviews, knowledge systems, and ways of being coexist. It refutes the idea of the Atacama as a desolate place by following water systems from their source in the Tatio geothermal fields in the Andes, through biodiverse ecosystems, canalization for agricultural use, and eventual diversion for extractive activities.

It was commissioned by Futurium, Berlin for their annual theme on raw materials Trassures of the Future. The exhibition explores among other things, what effects the extraction and consumption of raw materials have on humans and nature; which players, demands and geopolitical interests shape the global raw-materials industry; and how raw materials can be extracted, recycled and reused in a manner that’s more environmentally friendly and socially equitable.

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Interview by Traces of Nitrate (Louise Purbrick, Xavier Ribas, Ignacio Acosta); edited by Lara Garcia Reyene and Susanne Diett; assistant editor Melli Berney; sound design by Udit Duseja; colourist Paul Willis; translations by Andrea Florez Jurado, Patricia Thomas, Rosalina Babourkova, Teresa Cole and This Keller.

Supported by Futurium and AHRC project Solid Water, Frozen Time, Future Justice: Photography and Mining in the Andean Glaciers, University of Brighton / Royal College of Arts (RCA), UK

Acknowledgments Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen, Germany, La Tintorera artist residency, San Pedro de Atacama

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Link to exhibition

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