This week, Portland-based artist Roger Peet will present new and existing work alongside creators from around the world at the Biennale de Lubumbashi, which runs from October 24th to November 24th. It was held on the 24th in the second largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Lubumbashi’s 8th Biennale, with the theme “Antidote to Toxicity”, tackles the region’s mining industry. Mining brings great wealth to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and powers some of the world’s most important industries at staggering costs to the environment and mining workers.
Pete, who has previously exhibited work at the Lubumbashi Biennale, collaborates with Congolese artist Sixte Kakinda and Japanese artist Toshie Takeuchi, the source of uranium for the Manhattan Project and the inspiration for the film Black Panther. They plan to collaborate on art that explores the Shincolobue Mine and the relationship between the two countries. Vibranium.
“The people who own everything don’t want us to know about each other. And they definitely don’t want us to start imagining that all our struggles are connected. ” Pete wrote in an Instagram post promoting his participation in the Biennale.
The work that Pete exhibited at Souvenir Gallery in Portland last year will also be exhibited at Picha Art Center in Lubumbashi. Works in the Souvenir Gallery’s show “Dig Up the Sun” include Pete’s research on the Cincolobue mine and its ore’s impact on other parts of the world, including the Hanford site on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge. Includes a linocut map showing Peet’s research on the effects of In a blog post he wrote for the Dig Up the Sun gallery opening last October, Pete revealed his very personal connection to the Shincolobue mine, and that J. Robert Oppenheimer He spoke about his displeasure with the success of his eponymous biopic, which blew up last summer’s box office.
“That success was made possible by stone from a Congo mine that was cracked and crushed until only the heart remained,” Pete said. “The works of science and war have moved the world so far away, and we ourselves have become so far removed from it, that we no longer remember what it means to be in it. Zero gravity, we’re barely there. This is the first microsecond of a long nuclear future, and all we have left is the desire to see it all end. .”
