Unearthing new epistemologies of extraction

It was 40 degrees celsius at Boorloo, Perth station when boarding the train bound for Walyalup, Fremantle on Thursday, February 1st. Gazing out as we pulled into town, the mass of shipping containers, unwavering lifting cranes and a blinding white ensemble of new toyota hilux utes came together to form an image of neoliberalism’s organisation of dug up metals, minerals and fuels—a thematic primer that anticipated the exhibition at PS Arts Space.
'Open cut, closed loop', curated by Chantelle Mitchell and Jaxon Waterhouse, brings together two video works: Regina de Miguel’s Nekya, A River Film (2023) and Georgia Nowak & Eugene Perepletchikov’s Aurum (2020) at PS Art Space in the port city of Walyalup. Docked from January 27 to February 11, the project surfaces in the mining empire of Western Australia, and explores how histories of extractivism can operate as a central node between disciplinary understandings. It is a nexus of connections between the logistics of late-capitalism; our archaic, insatiable desire to dig; the origins of subsurface resources; life under extreme circumstances on our planet; and the potentiality of existence on others—all of these strata are present in the show.