The
Candian Pavilion – Extraction
Commissioner:
Catherine Crowston, Art Gallery of Alberta
Curator:
Pierre Belanger, OPSYS.
Exhibitors:
OPSYS / RVTR
“Canada
has become a preeminent resource base and an operating platform for the world’s
mining industry.”
Canada.
The project is a response to Canada’s
contemporary culture and global economy of resource extraction. Canadian
transnational corporations currently operate close to 9,000 mining projects
worldwide, in nearly every country, continent, and ocean on the planet. As a
multimedia initiative, the project explores the current and historic legacy of
resource extraction from a Canadian perspective with an installation, film, and
book featuring prominent creators and influential thinkers, past and present,
on Canada’s global resource empire.
Above.
The bags contains 100g of ore from a gold mine in the region of Furtei, Sardinia.
The concentration of gold in the Earth’s crust globally is estimated to be as
low as 1 part per billion (ppb). With
contemporary extraction technology, these concentrations must reach at least 1 part per million (ppm) for a mine to be commercially viable. As the
concentration of a deposit decreases, the environmental effects dramatically and irreversibly
increase.
Canada
– Geoffrey Thun, Kathy Velikow of RVTR and curator Pierre Belanger/
OPSYS
Photograph
courtesy – Canadian Pavilion
The
Canadian Pavilion
Gold
Ore (Au, Cu, Pyrite) 30X Zoom
Concentration
1 : 1,000,000,000 (1 PPB)