From March to July this year, University of Exeter Associate Lecturer and PhD researcher Madeline R. Young, and Falmouth University Lecturer in Marine and Natural History Photography, Guy Martin, are collaborating on an FX Creative Exchange which visually explores how colonial-era mining in Africa has impacted landscapes, human relationships, Indigenous communities, their traditions, and ways of life.
From March to July to this year, University of Exeter Associate Lecturer and PhD researcher, Madeline R. Young, and Falmouth University Lecturer in Marine and Natural History Photography, Guy Martin, are working together on a compelling new collaboration investigating the use of photographic historical archives to visually explore how colonial-era mining in Africa has impacted landscapes, human relationships, Indigenous communities, their traditions, and ways of life.
Based at the Penryn campus in Cornwall, the collaboration investigates how historical photographic archives from the United Kingdom, France and Belgium have represented the treatment of “self” and “other” in terms of mining in Africa during the European colonial periods. The pair seek to uncover the overlap of photography technology, its use in the elevation of the European “self” as global industry players, and the evidence of instrumental “othering” of African people and their relationship to their lands and previously sustainable ways of life.
Highlighting the colonial history of erasure of African people and their relationship to land and ecological stewardship, the collaboration blends archival evidence, social sciences analysis, visual arts, and compelling, sensitive storytelling using Cornwall’s unique research leadership in the global mining industry. The pair aim to raise challenging questions to show how historical legacies and complex debates around natural resources sustainability, ecology, and human rights are changing the cultural landscape of mining. This critical, visual discussion will open broader scientific, socio-economic, and artistic debates around what the future of mining could look like.
Guy and I are challenging the public to reconsider vintage mining images from Africa with critical eyes and reflect on the impacts for their subjects’ lives and lands. This leads us to question how companies and global consumers interact with resource exporting countries now.
Madeline and Guy will be examining archival material at several different institutions including the University of Exeter’s Camborne School of Mines, the British Museum in London, Institut national d'histoire de l'art and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the African Museum of Belgium in Brussels. The collaboration will culminate in a series of exhibitions and panel discussions in Cornwall and London this coming July.
What is most exciting is the opportunity to visit Camborne School of Mines own photographic archive – as a photographer who has covered conflict and violence for much of my career – I have often been reminded of the simple power of a historical photograph to reimagine or re-tell stories that too often it would be easier not to tell.
The collaboration is part the newly reimagined FX Creative Exchange, a programme which facilitates collaborations between researchers, community partners and creative practitioners from the University of Exeter and Falmouth University on their shared campus in Penryn, Cornwall. The programme focuses on exploring themes of environmental change, ecological citizenship, and sustainable futures, and in doing so aims to support Cornwall’s creative industries and stimulate opportunities for dynamic public engagement and knowledge exchange.
I believe the FX Creative Exchange Programme promotes true cross-disciplinary collaborations between scientists and artists, catalysing the generation of new ideas that are often unexpected, but synergistic, in nature.
There will be a series of FX Creative Exchange drop-in sessions hosted by both Exeter and Falmouth from March onwards, where you can discover more about the project’s progress. Dates to be announced soon here.
It’s great to see a space held for collaborations of all kinds: whether artistic, scientific, or ideally a combination of both. In asking new questions of social science and archival research, this proposed work resonates in its retelling of important global stories. A crucial first step
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