Approaching the past and present relationships between ecology, economics, conflict and technology, Hugo de Almeida Pinho’s exhibition reflects on how the geological materiality of earth defines the technical culture of media by the extensive use of mineral resources in technological devices, but also on the implications between the history of technology and the inner histories of colonial and neocolonial societies. Taking the form of several installations, Paradox of Plenty is composed by three main axes: a critical approach to the nineteenth-century geological museums created after European colonial expeditions to Africa and South America; the so-called conflict minerals or 3TG (Tantalite, Tungsten, Tin and Gold) from these same (neo)colonial territories, that still carry different entropic, environmental, labour and bellic costs; and the lithium fever in Portugal, that has become the scene of a conflict between the political and economic interests and the concerns of local people regarding the environmental and social problems arising from the lithium prospection.

The artist will present a Performance Act in the installation ‘New Natures’, every Tuesday 17-19h (28.05/04.06/11.06) at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, and a side programme – co-curated with Sara Castelo Branco – composed of an artists’ film screening named “Out Off Nature”, in Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst.

De Almeida Pinho’s residency and the screening “Out Off Nature”are co-funded by Camões Berlim.