Overburden: On Extraction And The Shape Of Things To Come

“Only once we imagined the world as dead could we dedicate ourselves to making it so”

– Ben Ehrenreich

Extraction refers to the forced removal of raw materials from the Earth’s surface, depths and biosphere. It is a process that has not only calamitously resulted in an inevitable climate crisis, but also shapes how we understand the world.

By looking at extraction as both a material reality and a cultural problem, the Overburden exhibition draws attention to the role played by art and the imagination in shaping our cultural definitions of “nature”, “progress” or “crisis”. And what remains outside the box, or is difficult to recognize within?

The work of artists Alaa Abu Asad, Rachel Bacon, Anastasia Kubrak, Harun Morrison and Miriam Sentler has its origins in various locations, including Palestine, the Czech Republic and South Limburg, and questions our cultural imagination with respect to nature, in relation to the colonial past, labour and the development of knowledge.