Canada 2016

“Extraction”

A cutting-edge, multimedia exploration of Canada’s extractive industries and mineral lives is set to represent Canada at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. Provocatively called “Extraction”, the project will feature an installation, film and book addressing the ecologies and territories of resource extraction.

The project explores the architectures, histories and economies of Canada’s culture of resource extraction, to profile the rise of a “global resource empire” where, in the words of revered political economist Harold Innis, “Canada has emerged as a political entity not in spite of geography, but because of it.” Through the lens of the territorial infrastructures and political ecologies of resource urbanism, “Extraction” engages contemporary and historic media across a range of cultural, spatial and industrial views. It brings together perspectives from business, history, art, activism and elsewhere, to radically rethink Canada’s global position, as home to 75% of our planet’s prospecting and mining companies.

Exhibitors: OPSYS / RVTR