RESEARCH EXHIBITION: The Geopolitics of Deep Sea Mining in Papua New Guinea

Mining is going into the abyss. Driven by a desire to meet an ever increasing global demand for both conventional and unconventional metals, humanity is going further, deeper and to more extreme places than ever before. For example, all eyes are on the deep ocean where mining is no longer the stuff of science fiction but a political reality. In 2017, Japan successfully extracted zinc a mile under the surface of the water whilst Papua New Guinea (PNG) is scheduled to become home to the world’s first commercial deep sea mine. This exhibition asks questions of deep-sea mining as a politicalissue, not just as a scientific one. If we want more green technology and infrastructure, then how far are we prepared to go for the metals to build it? Given that most of humanity has never experienced the deep seabed before, whose knowledge counts in making it into a site of resource extraction? More philosophically, who is to say that politics is the preserve of humanity? What other objects, forms of life, and spiritualties might come together to adequately describe and prepare for a deep-sea world of extraction which is in the making? Two years of research in Papua New Guinea begins to shine a light on the politics of deep-sea mining