Stories of Post-extractive Feminist Futures

The spatial practices of mining areas have been under-researched using inclusive methods. The shrinking town of Eisenerz lies at the foot of the Erzberg mountain, Austrias largest and best- known site of iron ore extraction. The post-industrial town is experiencing a rural exodus, which disproportionately affects women. Mining is predominantly talked about in heroic narratives, while counter-narratives of repair, care, reproduction and maintenance are mostly omitted. Within this complex field, the project focuses on intersectional feminist perspectives to collect post-extractive stories, which will broaden the perception of mining areas and strengthen the focus on the diversity of narratives for future perspectives. We ask this: Which practices contribute to the continuance of the community? Through this question, the project aims to show and discuss the multiple and diverse actors and their spatial practices of repair, maintenance and care. Citizen scientists will be involved at three levels: 1. Citizens of the community will collect stories, research private archives, report and communicate. Processes of mutual learning will take place in workshops and meetings. 2. In workshops citizens will create imaginations of future stories of a liveable community; and, with the help of artists, these will be illustrated and included in discussions and public representation. 3. Based on collaborative science and a welcoming affirmative approach, citizens will be part of decisions relating to their contributions and their representation. Through feminist strategies of making visible, bringing together, and anticipating and activating futures, and also with the help of the artistic tools of knowledge production, this project will show practices and how they perform constant reparative counter-practices amid extraction. An ethical, intersectional framework of feminist citizen science will revive the margins of how we know about exploitation. The aim is to deliver a complex, yet profound, image of a polyphonic Anthropocene that allows dynamic assemblages to be imagined after exploitation. Project lead Dr Karin Reisinger (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) will be supported by regional artists and communicators; and four international cooperation partners will strengthen the project through discussions and exchange: Dr Katarina Bonnevier, Linnaeus University (Sweden); Professor Hélène Frichot, University of Melbourne; Professor Anke Strüver, University of Graz; and Dr Kim Trogal, University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury.

No additional funding sources recorded.