CONTACT
Ana Alenso
광산이 주는 것과 광산이 거두는 것 What the Mine Gives, the Mine Takes | 2020 | 5’35”
Courtesy of the artist
Courtesy of the artist
Synopsis
Ana Alenso uses fieldwork, research, and speculative narrative to examine the roots and present conditions of global resource extraction. Her work at EMAP 2026, a video piece derived from an immersive multimedia installation and publication, investigates the realities of gold mining in Venezuela’s Amazonian regions. Amid the 2014–2016 oil crisis, the Venezuelan government turned to large-scale mining, exploiting mineral reserves—particularly gold—through processes that release mercury and other pollutants into waterways, affecting both workers and ecosystems. Titled after a popular idiom from South American mining regions—one that forges a karmic link between the gains of extraction and their future toll—Lo que la mina te da, la mina te quita (What the Mine Gives, the Mine Takes, 2020) features a prototype mining machine reminiscent of improvised devices circulating within Venezuela’s gold industry. Presented as a five-minute video essay, fragments of an immersive scenography emerge, shaped through research conducted in dialogue with scientists, former military officers, Indigenous communities, and activists. Developed in collaboration with environmental organizations and investigative journalists, the work operates as a material inquiry into the enduring legacies of colonialism and the asymmetries of power structuring global extractivism.
About the artist
Berlin-based Venezuelan artist Ana Alenso examines the paradoxes of petrocultures, raising speculative questions about context-specific issues and the mechanisms of extractivism. Recent exhibitions include solo shows: Island Innovator at Kunstverein Arnsberg, Germany (2024); Como es arriba es abajo at Centro de Arte La Regenta in Gran Canaria, Spain (2023); and Mad Rush at Nkrumah Volini, Tamale, Ghana (2022). Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions including: The Three-Legged Cat at 18th Istanbul Biennial in Istanbul; Forgive Us Our Trespasses at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2024); Streetfight at Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie, Poland (2022); and the Geneva Biennale: Sculpture Garden in Switzerland (2022). She currently works and lives in Berlin, Germany.