Extracts of “Thinking through art, drawing and performance, ontological conflicts that are at the core of mining struggles” along with Alfredo Ledesma for the FIAR issue on ‘Struggles over Mining and Territory in Latin America’.
There I write about how in my drawings “water runs through the cosmos crossing and pollinating our planet. (…) Being able to visualize this cosmic cycle of water, the discussions concerning the territories affected by mining then appear limited. For there is usually a perception of mining tailings as something that only affects the populations directly adjacent to mining operations, ignoring the flow and recirculation of water that occurs throughout the planet”
I share an encounter with a mountain in San Ignacio, Cajamarca, not far from where my mom grew up. A mountain that physically looked as if it was alive and breathing, and how researching on the formation of the Andes brought me to reflect about ancient relations to minerals and mountains that might have been passed on across generations:
‘The glimmer, luminance, transparency, refraction of minerals could have well been reminders of the outer worlds that inhabit the cosmos, and of the cosmic events that made life in the universe possible. Elements from outer space older than the Milky Way, sinking in, burrowing in the entrails of mountains. Mountains which retrieve water from the atmosphere, receiving and collecting heavy rainfall and creating rivers.’
I also wrote about stories passed on in my family that took place in mountain environments and how ‘in these stories, one can read a symbolic critique of ways of life that make us pursue devastating destinies, that warns us of the danger of not taking care of our needs for water, or caution us about not being fooled by the appeal of money. Is the impetus behind the transmission of these stories a kind of recognition of the traumatic lived colonial memories that revolved so deeply around mineral extraction? Or is it also connected to a heritage of spiritual practices in connection to gold and silver, as elements associated with a spiritual connection to the sun and the moon?’
And the importance of a ‘practical, nurturing relation to a materiality or ecosystem (local and cosmic) that is practiced out of need. A care of the relationships with what keeps us alive and which is the basic condition for our life to exist.’ And how: ‘With so many deaths on one side of the several mining conflicts that exist in Abya Yala, the urgency of this situation carries criminal undertones both for the humans and for the destruction of entire ecosystems vital for the survival of our species.’
‘The political conversation around mining conflicts in Peru takes place within the conceptual framework of territory and the sovereignty of the nation-state to administer land according to the criteria of the law. This considers, for example, the possibility of consultation processes but also protects private property and the right to free enterprise, even more so after the modifications made to the 1993 Peruvian constitution that liberalized the protective role of the state. Something that structurally clashes with the welfare of the people (human and more than human) in mining extraction zones (…).
Furthermore, ‘the dialogue on the territory already begins at a disadvantage for these groups, who, in their dealings with the State, face the limitation of affirming a political-spiritual relationship with the cosmos.’
“Thinking through art drawing and performance, ontological conflicts that are at the core of mining struggles”. Forum for Inter-American Research (FIAR) Vol. 15.2 (Dec. 2022) pp.106-118.http://interamerica.de/current-issue/Caceres-Ledesma/,