La Vetta e L’Abisso: carrara

Abstract

La Vetta e L’Abisso is a sequence of photographs which address the problems associated with over-mining in the famous white marble mines of Carrara, Tuscany. As a visual essay, the series attempts to undercut contemporary notions of the sublime in the documentation of mineral extractivism, which has been dominant in recent years due to the popularity of photographers such as Edward Burtynsky. Furthermore, the title of the essay, and the display of the monochrome large format photographs with the addition of a gold-selenium tone, alludes to eco-Marxist notions of commodity fetishism and social alienation, which underpin the exploitative logic of capitalist (re-)production. Drawing on the authors previously published critical commentaries on the qualities of photography and environmental activism, this essay proposes an approach to praxis which undercuts the distant passivity of the sublime in favour of encountering the negative effects of extractivism first-hand.