The Unknown Mine Zone – exploration on alternative sources

ABOUT

The Unknown Mine Zone exhibition series reflect on the finiteness of raw materials and the access to viable alternatives.
By offering a platform to artists and designers to experiment with other forms of mineral extraction and design new modes of accretion to strengthen existing raw materials and mineral supplies, The Unknown Mine Zone offers an artistic insight in the current mining crisis and its potential solutions.

How will natural resources shape our lives with upcoming shortages? What will be materials that hold our future interests? How can we, as humans, adapt to a new landscape defined by material access? Can Man, Material and Mass-consumption continue to co-exist?

The Unknown Mine Zone highlights several artworks and innovative designs that engage with the looming natural resource crisis in an innovative and sustainable fashion.

The Unknown Mine Zone offers a collection of Amsterdam-based and traveling exhibitions and activities; with the exhibition in Transnatural Art & Design marking the official opening on October 16th 2020 in Amsterdam. Through this exhibition, the participating designers are encouraged to involve the public in their experiments and developing work.

Besides the in-house exhibition, Transnatural has partnered up with Nieuw Dakota, the EYE Filmmuseum and Oerol Festival to present a varied selection of works that engage and educate a wide and diverse public on the mining crisis and our access to natural resources.

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

17 OCT 2020 – 3 SEP 2021

The Unknown Mine Zone exhibition

13:00 - 17:00

18 APR 2021 – 6 JUN 2021

Nieuw Dakota program

11:00 - 18:00 (THU - FRI)

12:00 - 18:00 (SAT - SUN)

29 AUG 2021

The Unknown Mine Zone x EYE on Art

19:15 - 20:45

11 JUN 2021 – 20 JUN 2021

Oerol

10:00 - 18:00

EXHIBITION

The Great Work of the Metal Lover

Adam W. Brown

For What it’s Worth

Dillon Marsh

Electric Life

Teresa van Dongen

As Above, So Below

Xandra van der Eijk & Kristie van Noort

Future Remnants

Xandra van der Eijk

Notre-Dame

Concr3de

Werkplaats LOLA

De Onkruidenier

On Radical Ecology and Tender Gardening

Johan Grimonprez

Aireal

Teresa van Dongen

Anima

Kosuke Araki

SWEET-SWEAT Travelogue

De Onkruidenier

Forest Wool

Tamara Orjola

Agar Plasticity

AMAM

Fragile Habitats

MAEID

WEAVING WATER

Bela Rofe

The Body Garden

Pleun van Dijk & Fred Erik

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

De Onkruidenier - SWEET-SWEAT Travelogue

In the Netherlands, we are lord and master in adapting our living environment to people’s wishes. The SWEET – SWEAT project is an artistic research in which artist collective Onkruidenier questions this traditional image of our landscape. De Onkruidenier advocates a shift of our perspective to a situation where people are the ones who adapt. The project focuses on our relationship with the sea and the infinite connection between sweet and salt in our body and in the landscape.

In collaboration with scientists and experts, Onkruidenier proposes how we can broaden our relationship to a landscape by means of fieldwork and training. Various themes are discussed, such as the changing climate, loss of biodiversity, rising sea levels and the upcoming water, material and food problems.

The Travelogue of this voyage of discovery is shared in a multi-sensory set-up in the form of two exhibitions with a public program in New Dakota and Transnatural, a “multipliscentric” taste experience, a residence at Strandlab Almere and a presentation at the Oerol festival. The four locations all show their own nature-culture relationship. In addition, the findings can also be viewed digitally on UBRANARIUM, the personal archive of stories on the website of De Onkruidenier.

Teresa van Dongen - Aireal

Teresa van Dongen’s Aireal project is an artist in residency at Transnatural as part of The Unknown Mine Zone program. Aireal is building a material library with (raw) CO2-fixed raw materials that have been collected from international initiatives and research groups. A network has been set up with interesting research groups and initiatives that deal with the capture and conversion of CO2. These initiatives contribute to a growing material library that is featured in The Unknown Mine Zone series of exhibitions.

In the second phase Teresa works on an artistic form research in which she makes use of one or more of the collected raw materials and raw materials in which greenhouse gases are fixed or captured. From this flows a sculptural work, consisting of one large or several small sculptures. In the third phase, van Dongen makes a design translation into a food experience in which a CO2-containing menu, the qualities of the materials and raw materials come to the fore as the prime focus.

Taste The Unknown Landscape

Taste The Unknown Landscape is an urban expedition and multi-sensory taste experience in which De Onkruidenier, in collaboration with French food designer Céline Pelcé, challenges the visitor to train for a salty future. What do we feel, taste and experience when we expose ourselves to the taste of foam from the sea?

This taste experience by artist collective Onkruidenier is part of the SWEAT–SWEET Travelogue project; a research into freshwater and salt in our bodies and in the landscape in which research and fieldwork into ecological transformation due to climate change, salinization and soil subsidence are central.

How do we experience the landscape when we leave the pace of economic times behind us and reshape ourselves to the rhythm of ebb and flow? Can we live in harmony with the plants and organisms in the marine ecosystem again?

In addition, Teresa van Dongen will present several flavors consisting of rich CO2-containing dishes from crops, which represent the maximum level of CO2 absorption.

The expedition starts in the Tolhuistuin and takes us through the Amsterdam-North district, along the banks of the IJ as well to end at Sexyland World, which currently houses at a newborn location on dike of the IJ lake, right next to the Meeuwenlaan.

Dates:
Fri. 30 & Sat. 31 July 2021 13.30 – 16.30h
SOLD OUT

Participation Fee:
€12,50 (includes special food tasting, storytelling)

Location:
Tolhuistuin, Sexyland
Start at Tolhuisweg 5, Amsterdam

Tickets

Explore the Unknown Landscape

During this walk the Onkruidenier, in collaboration with landscape historian Mans Schepers (connected to RUG), research how the position of Amsterdam in relation to the sea has changed by the built of the Afsluitdijk and North Sea canal. Through the landscape we will look back into history to be able to speculate about the future. Walking alongside the IJ, we scramble for information and search for salt-loving plants and clues that will show the original connection with the sea. A tour through the exhibition is included.

Date:
Thursday 27 May 2021

Time:
from 13:00 to 16:00h

Location:
Nieuw Dakota, NDSM

Tickets:
SOLD OUT

THE UNKNOWN MINE ZONE X EYE ON ART

Belgian artist Johan Grimonprez previews his new film: SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ÉTAT, which will officially release in 2023. For his research he dived into the archives of the EYE filmmuseum.

Grimonprez started in the mines of the Congo, where he unravels the laden colonial history piece by piece. Next he intriguingly merges politics and biology. From the division and inequality surrounding the mines in Congo he brings us to an array of symbiotic communities: from bee colonies and termites, to the bacteria that Antoni van Leeuwenhoek discovered through his microscope; organisms from which we form a comprehensive ecology.

This EYE on Art evening is made possible in collaboration with Transnatural and features as a part of The Unknown Mine Zone exhibition. The exhibition and subsequent program shows artists, designers and architects who explore alternatives for our future raw mineral, food and material shortages. The exhibition runs from April 18th until the June 6th 2021 in Nieuw Dakota on the NDSM in Amsterdam.

Date:
Sunday 29 august 2021

Open:
19.15 – 20.45h

Address:
IJpromenade 1, Amsterdam

More information

Ticket link

LOCATION & DATES

Transnatural

Dates
17 October – 03 September 2021

Opening hours
Tue – Fri from 10.00 – 17.00h
Sat from 13.00 – 17.00h

Address
Jan van Galenstraat 125, Amsterdam

Nieuw Dakota

Dates
18 April – 6 June 2021

Opening hours
Thu – Fri from 11.00 – 18.00h
Sat – Sun from 12.00 – 18.00h

Address
Ms. van Riemsdijkweg 41b, Amsterdam

Eye on Art

Dates
29 August

Opening hours
Tue 19.15 – 21.00h

Address
IJpromenade 1, Amsterdam

ORGANISATION

The Unknown Mine Zone is an event organized by Transnatural institute that offers an ongoing cultural program and that represents an Art & Design Label.

Transnatural explores how technology can support the natural world and ecological wealth. All cultural activities and the label collection are related to an envisioned world where man, nature and technology merge. Transnatural works with a multi-faceted mixture of national and international creators, thinkers, businesses, R&D labs, studios and research institutes.

The Unknown Mine Zone is organized in close collaboration with the partners Nieuw Dakota, Eye Filmmuseum, and Oerol. The project is generously supported by the sponsors mentioned below. The Unknown Mine Zone is curated by Arjen Bangma and co-curated by Imke Ruigrok.

More information at www.transnatural.org / www.transnaturallabel.com