Overburden
2025
Site-specific installation and performance
In collaboration with Bianca Hisse and Christian Danielewitz
SACO 1.2 Contemporary Art Biennial, Antofagasta, Chile
Overburden is a site-specific installation and performance developed through field research in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The project explores the relationship between bodies, landscape and the environmental and political conditions of mineral extraction. The title refers both to an excessive burden and to the layers of earth and rock removed during mining to access valuable minerals.
The installation brought together two tons of sand, lithium brine, copper overburden, copper plates and salt from the Salar de Atacama, collected during research visits to extraction sites across the region. These materials, often treated as waste or by-products, formed the basis of a collective choreography developed with eight local performers.
The performance took place at Muelle Salitrero Compañía Melbourne Clark, a former nitrate export pier in Antofagasta. Carrying and dragging sandbags filled with mining waste, the performers moved through shifting formations, tracing lines of salt across the ground. Their gestures of carrying, drawing and mapping created temporary compositions resembling geoglyphs, connecting bodily movement with the site's industrial history and the ongoing transformation of the surrounding landscape.
Concept and artistic direction: Bianca Hisse, Shahrzad Malekian and Christian Danielewitz
Costume design: TueTue Estudio (Mima Escubort González)
Performers: Cinthia Zambra, Natalia Gutierrez, Pamela Trujillo, Ana Monroy, Islamán Villalobos, Valerie Olaya, César Leal and Lennyn Soto
Supported by: Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond (BKV), Grosserer L. F. Foghts Fond and SACO Contemporary Art Biennial.