Industrial modernity quickly learned that the materials needed to feed the factories had to be sourced far beyond the limited geography of the manufacturing centers, thus implicating design culture in the colonial world order and processes of globalization. The mining industries have a long and multifarious history intertwined with transnational manufacturing networks, but this has not been connected to the history of design culture.
To address this historiographical blind spot, which is fully in line with the general invisibility of raw materials in the history of design, Mining Modernity will trace materials extracted from nature during the second industrial revolution, with an emphasis on how their exploitation and consumption became an integral feature of modern design practices and material cultures.
The symposium is free, but requires registration: https://www.letsreg.com/no/register/miningmodernity
Wednesday 22. April 2026, 10:30 – 16:30 CET
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters,
Drammensveien 78, Oslo