Held on September 19th & 20th, 2024, at the University of Leeds, the Subterranean Forces symposium brought a diverse group of experts to explore the hidden and invisible depths of our planet. This transdisciplinary gathering offered a view of the complex interplay between Earth’s geological processes, human activities, and cultural narratives. From the energy that drives tectonic movements to the extraction of resources and the formation of landscapes, the symposium delved deep into the unseen forces that shape our world.
In the first section, Energy, we explored the vast energies that pulse through our planet, both in geological terms and cultural understandings. We started with George Lau, Professor of Art & Archaeology of the Americas at the University of East Anglia who set the stage with his presentation “Breath, land and mountains: archaeological reflections on earthly metabolisms“.
Drawing on ethnography, ethnohistory, and folklore of the high Andes, particularly the Cordillera Blanca in north-central Peru, Lau illustrated how indigenous cultures perceive mountains not as inert masses of rock, but as living, breathing entities with the power to vitalize or catastrophically change the world around them. This perspective challenges the conventional understanding of geological features and invites us to consider the deep connections between human cultures and the landscapes they inhabit. Lau’s talk offered a fascinating glimpse into native Andean understandings of mountains, emphasising the concept of breath and metabolism to theorize the often-subterranean impacts of these geological giants.
After Professor Lau’s Interventions, we moved to tectonic materialities with Professor Tim Craig, a geophysicist from the University of Leeds. His presentation, “The Fate of India beneath Tibet — Deep earthquakes and a strong Indian plate”, explained how geophysical evidence reveals the current location of the Indian plate beneath the plateau and its impact on the structure and evolution of the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau. This ongoing collision, which began millions of years ago, continues to shape one of the most dramatic landscapes on Earth. His presentation highlighted the implications of a strong Indian plate beneath Tibet on the structure of the India-Asia collision and the opportunities this presents for understanding deep tectonic processes affecting the region.
Finalising the first session and bridging the gap between geological forces and human engagement with the Earth, Professor Nigel Clark from Lancaster University presented “Molten praxis: Negotiating the inner/outer Earth juncture”. Clark’s talk explored the intersection of human manipulation of fire and our understanding of Earth’s inner dynamics. Clark’s presentation raised questions about the technical skills, beliefs, and rituals that have played a part in negotiating humanity’s relationship with the molten forces beneath our feet, suggesting that humans have effectively been mediating between the inner and outer Earth for millennia, using high heat as a means of articulating this crucial planetary juncture. Professor Clark interventions offered a new perspective on how humans have long engaged with the energies of the Earth’s interior.
The second session entitled Extraction shifted the focus to the complex issues surrounding resource extraction and its impact on landscapes, communities, and cultural heritage.
Commencing with Professor Xavier Ribas, photographer and lecturer at the University of Brighton and Universitat Politècnica de València, and his presentation “Solid water and fossil water: Natural resources or cultural heritage?”, this panel opened with Ribas’s photographic work documenting sites affected by mining operations in the Chilean landscape, specifically focusing on the abandoned industrial network of water extraction wells in the Monturaqui Aquifer and the retreating Juncal Norte glacier threatened by copper mining prospection.
Ribas’s presentation challenged the audience to reconsider the divide between nature and culture that often underlies capitalist extraction. Ribas questioned Western perceptions that separate the natural world from human culture, highlighting how these divisions ultimately fuel the capitalist extractive machine, and looking at the archives or the period as an archive of capitalism.
From here we shifted to the complexities of archaeological practice and state heritage policies in the context of extraction brought to the forefront by Dr. Claudia Uribe from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Her talk, “Heritage fallacies: State ethics and archaeological practice at Cerro Trinidad”, critically examined the contradictions between archaeological practices, state heritage policies, and extractivist dynamics at the Cerro Trinidad archeological site in Peru.
Dr. Uribe highlighted how, despite Peru’s heritage policies aimed at protecting precolonial sites as national assets, Cerro Trinidad has suffered from systemic neglect and unregulated urban expansion. In this context, the development of the Chancay mega-port has further compromised the site’s integrity. Uribe’s presentation exposed how both archaeological practices and state heritage ethics have failed to uphold their own principles, revealing the fallacy of heritage discourse when confronted with the extractivist logics inherent in development-driven archaeology and state policy.
Finally, Professor Joy Sleeman from the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, offered an artistic perspective on extraction with her presentation “Artists and chthonian processes”. Sleeman explored how artists visualise, embrace, and exploit subterranean forces through their encounters with material residues of extractive industries. Drawing on examples from a recent collaborative project inspired by artists’ engagement with oil shale bings in West Lothian, Scotland, and research on American artists Nancy Holt’s and Robert Smithson’s work in England and Wales in 1969, Sleeman illustrated how art can provide insights into our relationship with extracted materials and altered landscapes.
The final session entitled Formations brought together diverse perspectives on how subterranean forces shape not only our physical world but also our cultural narratives and understanding of history.
Commencing with Professor Gareth Hoskins from Aberystwyth University, the presentation titled “Terrestrial impact craters as sites of geo-political colonial relation” contrasted the spectacular narratives of cosmological ending (and beginning) that often frame our understanding of impact events with the everyday, routine colonial-capitalist material reorganizations of an impact’s aftermath. By examining how impact sites are used for scientific imperialism, resource extraction, and tourism, Hoskins revealed the interplay between territory, power, and security in these geologically significant locations.
The presentation highlighted various impact sites around the world, from the Ries and Rochechoruart craters in Germany and France, quarried for building stone, to South Africa’s Vredfort impact structure used for agriculture and sewage dumping, and the Sudbury Basin in Canada. Through these examples, Hoskins invited the audience to reflect on the jarring co-incidence of annihilation and utility represented by these sites.
This presentation was followed by Mariana Florian-Tirado, an ecologist and archivist from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, who brought a poetic and performative perspective to the symposium with her presentation “Sacrifice Landscapes as Cinematic Archives: Exploring Gender and Labor in Latin American Mining Documentaries”. Florian-Tirado’s intervention explored the intersection of gender, labour, and landscape in Latin American mining contexts through the lens of documentary films and prose.
Prompted by films such as Río Turbio (2020) by Tatiana Mazú and Daughter of Chorolque (2007) by Misun Park, Florian-Tirado revealed stories of women challenging social norms and power structures in male-dominated mining environments. For her, these documentaries not only exposed the harsh realities faced by women in mining communities but also served as powerful archives and repositories of knowledge, illuminating and preserving earthly narratives in our collective memory and more-than-human beings.
Finally, Professor Bill Murphy from the University of Leeds concluded the symposium with his presentation, “Geological processes as expressed in myth and history”. Murphy’s talk bridged the gap between slow geological processes, typically measured in millimeters per year, and rapid, catastrophic events such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, and tsunamis. His presentation illustrated how geological processes have impacted historical documents and oral traditions throughout human history. From the weathering and erosion of metamorphic rocks near Scilla (Calabria) inspiring stories of the monster Scylla to the appearance of catastrophic geological events in literature and popular media, Murphy’s presentation demonstrated the profound influence of Earth’s processes on human culture and imagination.
