Blinman Slag is an art/science exploration of mining slag waste from the Blinman Copper Mine in the Northern Flinders Ranges of South Australia.
Examining slag from historical, geological, mineralogical and cultural perspectives, the exhibition by Grayson Cooke explores the strange beauty of mining waste as a window into the enormous forces humankind exerts upon the earth. These forces are immense but frequently rationalised within narratives of technological progress or economic necessity.
While anti-mining activism uses public action and protest to draw attention to the negative environmental and social effects of resource extraction, this project takes a different approach, seeking new ways to manifest and image the changes wrought upon the earth by human activity.