Mining Artist Calls for Collective Earth Stewardship

Photo Credit: Supplied

Jeannette Unite inspires collective Earth stewardship by creating incredible mining artworks; her series is being exhibited at the Iziko South African Museum.

Cape Town, South Africa (16 August 2022) – Mining and Earth artist Jeannette Unite’s work is part socio-political commentary and part celebratory affirmation of nature. Her reverence of the wonder of the universe highlights the amazing world we live in. But while she marvels at the planet’s minerals, materials and geology, her joy is offset by the ongoing destructive gouging out of the Earth.

Unite’s current transdisciplinary exhibition is on view at Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town, until 31 March, 2023. Titled PLOT: Critical Zones, it distils her research across more than 30 countries, and examines how Earth is owned, measured, divided, and allocated by title deeds and legal rights over land and resources.

Underpinning it all is a focus on the so-called Critical Zone that encircles Earth, the layer from above the tree tops to below groundwater, where melded minerals and water create and support life.

Through an installation of mostly large-scale “bar-code” paintings, Unite spotlights this imperilled environment, calling for collective Earth stewardship to safeguard the degradation of this complex natural habitat.

Her extraordinary eco-alchemic works are created with the mined material they interrogate, using a paint box comprising of oxides, metal salts and residues harvested from extraction, heritage and industrial sites. These she combines into unique paint, pastel and glass recipes developed with the assistance of paint-chemists, a ceramicist and geo-chemist.

That the exhibition is in Iziko’s natural history museum is indicative of Unite’s synthesis of cross-disciplinary science and art.

It’s fitting then that her 7m wide high personalised Table of Elements is displayed in the Periodic Table format.

“When my collections of minerals from mines became too chaotic, I realised that the grid of the Periodic Table was a brilliant system of organising all the ore and pigment powders. I refer to the periodic table shelves in my studio as my “artists paintbox”, she says.

In Unite’s view, people need to reflect on the rarity of the materials. “I am trying to awaken consciousness – not only of the mining industry being essential to our lives, but that we drive the industry and purchase objects with built-in obsolescence, and the lack of care for manufactured goods that actually demand so much mining. It’s us who demand the mining. It’s us artists who use pigments that come from mines. We all drive the industry through the use of modern phones, flying, driving, kitchen utensils and appliances… It’s us humans, all of us – we are the end users.”

“For me, my work is an ongoing epiphany,” she says. “It’s a journey. We live in the most wonder-filled world and we need to be worthy custodians of this beautiful planet.”

PLOT: Critical Zones is on show at Iziko South African Museum. See www.iziko.org.za For information call +27 (0)76 906 9767, or see www.unite.co.za