Rasha Lama

Landscape Repositories: Mapping Post-Mining Narratives in A̶s̶b̶e̶s̶t̶o̶s̶,̶ ̶Q̶C̶ Val-des-Sources, QC

Landscape Repositories: Mapping Social Narratives in A̶s̶b̶e̶s̶t̶o̶s̶,̶ ̶Q̶C̶ Val-des-Sources, QC proposes the ‘landscape repository’ as a tool for landscape literacy and cultural legitimacy that integrates histories, geographies, and social narratives to inform grounded and place-based post-mining futures.

Val-des-Sources, Québec (formerly Asbestos, QC) is a place whose extraction legacies and material histories are deeply interwoven into its contemporary economy and cultural landscape. The centre of town is the Jeffrey Mine, once the world’s largest open-pit asbestos mine that is deep enough to hide the Eiffel Tower entirely. Ceased in 2012, the 130-year-old Jeffrey Mine and sixty-one other Québec asbestos sites once supplied about 80% of the world’s asbestos. Only recently has the provincial government focused on the region’s economic, environmental, and public-health concerns. Yet, what remains underrepresented in these actions are the local communities living within these post-mining landscapes.

By treating post-mining landscapes as repositories, how might archival research, landscape writing, and counter-mapping help shape their futures? This work displays these various place-based narratives through writing and mapping using archival material, oral histories, site research, and landscape theory to reveal the complexity of post-mining landscapes and how social legacies can inform future interventions. By approaching the physical and cultural remains of this extraction history as repositories, the possibility for a nuanced post-mining intervention reveals itself.

"A̶s̶b̶e̶s̶t̶o̶s̶,̶ ̶Q̶C̶ Val-des-Sources, QC: Histories, Geographies, and Social Narratives of Post-Mining Landscapes Research
Print, 11"x8.5", 52pg
 

A̶s̶b̶e̶s̶t̶o̶s̶,̶ ̶Q̶C̶ Val-des-Sources, QC
Composite Drawing, Print, 36"x48"

Composite drawing exploring a historical timeline through the Jeffrey Mine’s expansion alongside the spatial evidence of the mining process on the current landscape.

Asbestos Is: ________
Video Mapping, 1 minute 40 seconds

Mapping memory through archival collages and narrative writing inspired by the hippocampal index theory.

Asbestos Is: ________, 
Drawing, Print, 36"x96"

Mapping memory through archival collages and narrative writing inspired by the hippocampal index theory.

Property of J.M.
Landscape Repository, Item, 11"x17"x6"

A traveling exhibition project that explores the asbestos mining industry through maps, photographs, memos, and material samples carried in one briefcase labeled J.M., referring to Johns-Manville as well as Jeffrey Mine. The format is a nod to the company officials of Johns-Manville Company who would fly directly from the New York City headquarters to Asbestos, QC to monitor their prized asset, the Jeffrey Mine. A product that is ubiquitous around the world but whose origins as a mined resource is largely unknown, this traveling exhibition seeks to present the story of J.M. and J.M. through archival intimacy and material tactility as a mineral that should not be touched.

Property of J.M.
Narrative Atlas, Print, 11"x8.5"

A booklet titled "Where We Live and Work," title borrowed from a 1950 postcard, explores the tension between narratives surrounding the mine and town through landscape writing and archival material:
"Tension is at the heart of this place. Technically speaking, the formation of asbestos can only occur during the collision of an ancient ocean with a continental plate. The result of this geologic tension is the fibrous silicate material we call asbestos. Without tension, there would not be asbestos. The same applies to the town of Asbestos: without the tension of the ever-growing mine demolishing the town, there would be no reason for the town to exist.
Here, then, is a conflict between two narratives, one that credits the mine for creating and providing the town with its wealth, luxuries, and raison d’être, versus the other that blames the mine for reducing, demolishing, and erasing the memories of the four generations that built this town called home."

Property of J.M.
CNC Mapping, Print, 11"x17"

A mapping locating long-gone institutions in town resurfaced through oral histories and archival material.