Extractions (2024)
Extractions is an ongoing, interdisciplinary art project by Linn Obrestad and Hilde Iren Dølheim under the collaborative name HILO-Project. Through sculptural installations, video works, and text-based interventions, the project explores the dual meanings of "extraction", as both a physical act of resource removal and a symbolic process of cultural, ecological, and emotional erosion.
At its core, Extractions examines the duality inherent in technological progress: the promise of innovation and convenience versus the often-hidden environmental and cultural costs. By blending organic and industrial materials, intimate narratives, and immersive technologies, Extractions reflects on the delicate balance between destruction and renewal, and envisions alternative futures grounded in resilience, solidarity, and accountability.
Rooted in research on rare earth mining at Fensfeltet in Norway, Extractions expands its focus to explore global systems of resource use, environmental transformation, and societal change.
In pursuit of economic gain, both nature and humanity are sacrificed.
Roots mounted in steel frames, copper flowers on wood, and fragments of forest ecosystems are transformed into symbols of connection and separation, resilience and vulnerability. Each work is meant as a layered conversation, where opposing ideas and emotions exist side by side, resisting the simplifications of language.
What happens to our collective values when what cannot be sold is deemed worthless?
And what do we lose when nature is no longer seen as a living world but as a depleted bank of resources?
In Extractions, we look at the consequences of a culture that undermines the essence of what it means to be human; our bond to the earth, to each other, and to a shared future.