1:10000

  • Dana Prieto

1:10000 is an interdisciplinary project stemming from an artistic exploration and geopolitical research on the social and environmental impacts of Canadian mining in Global South communities. The work is currently focusing on territories surrounding Bajo la Alumbrera mine in the municipality of Belén, Catamarca Province, Argentina.

The project involves the creation of a series of ceramic vessels built with clay from Belén and Hualfín, territories largely contaminated with arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and sulphuric acids from Canadian mining. The vessels will be later gifted to the CEO and Corporate Social Responsibility executives of Yamana Gold and Goldcorp (cover), both companies currently operating the Bajo la Alumbrera mine.

Dana Prieto, This end up fragile (from the series 1:10000), 2018. Cardboard boxes, mail parcel tags, packing tape, ceramic vessels, wooden boxes. Courtesy the artist.
Dana Prieto, 1:10000 Bajo la Alumbrera, 2018. Glazed black stoneware with soil contaminated by Bajo de la Alumbrera mine, wooden box, gold leaf engraving. Courtesy the artist.
Dana Prieto, 3D Model of Bajo de la Alumbrera mine [elevation] (from the series 1:10000), 2018. Courtesy the artist.



Dana Prieto is an Argentine-Canadian artist and educator based in Tkaronto. Her site-responsive work examines our deep relations with colonial structures and infrastructures through a careful attention to the ground, and the different forms of living and dying within it. Dana’s practice is material, process, and place-focused, and often unfolds over extended periods of artistic research and interdisciplinary collaborations. For over ten years, Dana has worked with ceramic processes and soil-derived materials to reflect on the technologies of containment found in the places where she lives and works: looking at mines, bodies, nests, vessels, institutions, and land. Dana holds a Master of Visual Studies from University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from OCAD University. Her work has been presented in national and international galleries, public spaces and informal cultural venues.

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