Seeing Extraction: the Production and Reproduction of Energy Culture

Abstract

Extractive waste is a socioecological process that conditions humans and the more-than-human world. This article considers contemporary visual culture that foregrounds the violence of resource extraction in places where waste perpetuates environmental injustice for the reproduction of fossil energy culture. The three artists I examine each engage with coal waste in particular as a form of extractive violence: J Henry Fair’s photography project Industrial Scars, Raina Martens’ ceramics project Transcorporeal Trash Communion, and John Sabraw’s painting series Chroma. While these artists call attention to the spaces where waste is present, Martens and Sabraw concentrate on social practices and ecological processes that connect situated experiences of environmental injustice. I conclude by suggesting that contemporary visual artists and cultural theorists convey uneven experiences of extractive violence when they centre cultural production alongside socioecological reproduction within the global energy culture.