Art, Ecology, and and Climate: Extraction

One of several e-museums devoted to ecological and climatological topics, these artworks depict laborers and industries engaged in processes of environmental extraction, such as mining, logging, shell collecting, and excavating. Many of the works highlight processes whereby valuable metals, minerals, rocks, soils, and fossil fuels are extracted from the ground and refined. The e-museum also includes several photographs and stereographs from 19th-century Japan that document the stages of silk production, as well as a photographic series that captures the processes used to log and mill old-growth forests in northern California in the early twentieth century. Though many of these artworks have a documentary quality, all of them imply some kind of stance towards the industries and environmental impacts they depict. We invite you to think critically about how different artworks use elements of form, content, and style to create these stances, especially when considering their target audiences.

More images of extraction can be found in other Art, Ecology, and Climate E-Museums, including “Power and Energy,” “Pollution and Contamination,” and “The Anthropocene.”