MAN & MINING - Global extraction and its impact on people and nature

In the light of the world’s rapidly growing population and expanding consumption, the need to extract raw materials poses ever-greater ecological, economic, political and social problems on a global scale. In particular, unsustainable mining practices and the exploitation of ecological systems and local communities come with enormous environmental and social costs that burden current and future generations. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet the global demand for raw materials. For example, a whole variety of metals are now needed to effect the transition to sustainable forms of energy with the help of renewable power.

The exhibition MAN & MINING at the UNESCO World Heritage Site Völklingen Ironworks explores the human factor in the extraction of raw materials and the mining business – the human resources that first enable the industrial appropriation of land above and below ground.

Whether the continued mining of iron ore and coal, which gave rise to the former Völklingen Ironworks, or the extraction of gold, silver, manganese or lithium, which are vital for electromobility and electronic devices such as tablets and smartphones – the exhibition firmly adopts the perspective of the people involved in, and impacted by, the extraction of raw materials.

MAN & MINING brings together photographs, found art and installation artworks from Unknown Fields (AU/UK), Danny Franzreb (AT), Johnny Haglund (NO), Pieter Hugo (ZA), Lu Guang (CN), Andrea Mancini (LU), Lisa Rave (DE), Sebastião Salgado (BR) and Gabriella Torres-Ferrer (PR) in an exhibition landscape specially designed for the Ore shed.

An exhibition of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Völklingen Ironworks, in cooperation with the Museum of Work in Hamburg (inaugural exhibition location: 17.11.2023–1.05.2024).