Symposium, Geopolitics of the Forest, UmArts, Umea, Sweden

From Mars to Venus brings together works by artist and researcher Ignacio Acosta untangling politics of representation, extraction and resistance across two seemingly distant geographies: Sápmi in northern Sweden, home to the Sámi people; and the Atacama Desert and Andes Mountains region in Chile. The expansion of mining projects in these regions already affected by anthropogenic climate change has led to a rise in social, environmental, and economic injustices. Faced with the sustained violence that mining exerts on bodies and ecosystems, the exhibition brings these distant regions into dialogue with each other through their diverse strategies of resistance, highlighting the determination of Indigenous and local people to maintain their knowledge, traditions, and ways of life in increasingly fragmented territories.

 In ancient cosmology, planets and minerals have long been associated with alchemical traditions, astrology, and symbolic correspondences. Mars is symbolized by iron, while Venus is associated with copper. In this work, Sápmi where the majority of the iron is mined in Europe, becomes Mars; and the Atacama-Andes region, where the largest amount of the world’s copper is produced, becomes Venus. Mars and Venus; iron and copper—like yin and yang, opposites but interconnected.