At a time when access to lithium is deemed imperative, growing acts of prospection and extraction are imposed upon livelihoods around the world: new mining frontiers are erupting across the Global North, while violent extractivism thrives in the so-called Global South. Under the banner of the “green” transition, the mineral rush and its global extractivist apparatus systematically attempt to render superfluous any alternative models for human and other-than-human coexistence. Largely atomized, community and activist struggles across disparate geographies of extraction are firmly contesting such unfair transition and its violent implications: from Chile, to Portugal and Serbia. This research project unfolds the emancipatory potential of these socio-environmental assemblages, when rendered in plural. In doing so, it asks what tactics can rearticulate solidarity across difference, against and in spite of the expanding frontiers of extractive dispossession.
Tiago Patatas is a researcher and spatial practitioner, whose work investigates forms of environmental violence and its articulation with spatial politics. His recent practice interrogates modalities of green extractivism, in particular the eruption of lithium mining frontiers, and nuclear imperialism, including instances of nuclearization and their destructive global expanses. Formats of his practice include installations, digital platforms and evidence for legal cases. Individual and collaborative projects have been presented internationally, including at the Nieuwe Instituut, Helsinki Biennial, Cornell AAP, Galeria Municipal do Porto, and Porto Design Biennale. Tiago has taught at Lusófona University and University of Porto and holds a MA in Research Architecture with distinction from Goldsmiths, University of London. Currently, he is both a PhD candidate at the School of Architecture, Royal College of Art, and a researcher at INTERPRT.