On-Trade-Off

On-Trade-Off worked on the contemporary dimensions of a question as old, as mythical, and as strategic as our relation to energy. Taking the recent run on lithium as a starting point, the project explored a broad range of questions surrounding raw materials for technological industries, financial speculation, and the history of electricity.

On-Trade-Off was sparked by the ‘discovery’ of a large lithium deposit in Manono, a mining area in the DRC. The mine is not only a place of historical extractivism but also plays a key role in the promise of green energy. As Manono is currently transformed into a site of speculation and future exploitation, On-Trade-Off simultaneously unfolded as a structure for counter-narratives and alternative forms of collaboration and artistic creation.

By setting up a transversal dynamics that abolishes centers and exoticism, we aimed to render obsolete the fallacious dichotomy between those who ‘hold the technological knowledge’ and those who should catch up’. Our process of art production placed the question of (free) tools, (fair) practices, and knowledge (that matter) at the core. We had the ambition to imagine and articulate critical, sensitive, and speculative works of art that echo the incredible and tormented times we are living in.

On-Trade-Off presented new artworks developed during residencies and research on-site in Belgium, DR Congo, China, and Australia. Our propositions – in media as varied as photography, film, painting, sculpture, and digital formats – debate how technological innovation depends on raw material extraction.

As On-Trade-Off brought together the extremities of the world-spanning value chains, from its exploitative mining economies to its seductive product surfaces, it simultaneously experiments with a large array of artistic languages enabled by those same raw materials and technologies. The tension between examining matter and myths underpinning high-tech innovation, and the use of those same technologies for our international collaboration becomes a fertile ground for the project. We worked on both physical exhibitions and a digital Online Platform. On-Trade-Off merged multiple sites of work, life, and exchange that – although geographically distant – are central to its existence.

While the South/North borders are highly obstructed, the shipping of metals and ores is assured. How can we think beyond the dividing force of exploitative technologies today and, as artists, create new spaces for imagination, stories, and connection across continents? As a collective, we can reveal the blind spots, by giving forms to mutations, and by exploring the imaginary potential of the very present moment.

“There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” – Octavia Butler

See for more information: On-Trade-Off