NOV 07 Conferencia "Matters of Extraction: From the Margin of Empire(s)" | Alessandra Ponte

Nov 07 | 19.00h. | Auditorio FCV

Canada is home to 75% of all global prospecting and mining companies. Because of such staggering presence of the mining industry, Canada has been named an extraction empire. Nevertheless, the Premier of Québec, Philippe Couillard, guilty of brazenly inviting foreign companies to take advantage of the potentially rich mineral deposits in the North of the Province, has recently been reproached of acting as a “colonized”. Historically, Canada’s economy has been based on the extraction and exportation of natural resources: beaver pelts beginning in the seventeenth century; fish, timber, pulp and paper, in the eighteenth and nineteenth century; minerals, hydro-power, and oil during the twentieth and twenty-first century. Already in the 1930s, political economist Harold Innis, one of Canada’s greatest thinkers, proposed the “staples thesis” to explain the specificity of Canadian economic development and its heavy dependence on foreign markets and Imperial control. Innis developed the staple thesis when Canadians began to realize that after being subjects to the colonial dominion first of the French and than of British Empire, they were under threat of being crushed by the Empire south of their border: the USA markets and economy now dictating the kind of staple to be extracted and the rhythm of exploitation. One may safely say that Canadians have systematically been confronted with (and reflected upon) relations between centers and peripheries, international market trends, unbalanced system of power, and colonization strategies. Innis’ staple thesis permits to address in rich geographical, historical, political and economic terms the character of the “matter” extracted from specific locations and distributed worldwide. The lecture outlines and explores the complex Canadian experience taking as starting point gold mining in the Abitibi region of Québec.

Alessandra Ponte

Profesora titular en la École d’architecture, Université de Montréal. También ha enseñado en las escuelas de arquitectura de la Universidad de Princeton, la Universidad de Cornell, el Instituto Pratt de Nueva York, la ETH Zurich y en el Instituto Universitario de Arquitectura de Venecia. Durante diez años ha sido responsable de la concepción y organización del Seminario Internacional "Phyllis Lambert", coloquios anuales que se celebran en la Université de Montréal y que abordan temas actuales de paisaje y arquitectura. Curó la exposición "Entorno total: Montreal 1965-1975" (Centro Canadiense de Arquitectura, Montreal, 2009) y colaboró en la exposición y el catálogo "God & Co: François Dallegret Beyond the Bubble" (con Laurent Stalder y Thomas Weaver, Londres: Architectural Association Publications, 2011). Ha publicado numerosos artículos que incluyen recientemente una colección de ensayos sobre paisajes de América del Norte titulados The House of Light and Entropy (Londres: AA Publications, 2014). Contribuyó al Pabellón de Canadá en la Bienal de Arquitectura de Venecia en 2014 ("Adaptaciones del Ártico") y 2016 ("Extracción"). En 2014, 2015 y 2016, junto con estudiantes de maestría en arquitectura y colaboradores, investigó actividades mineras y asentamientos en tres regiones geológicas de la provincia de Quebec: el Labrador Through (hierro), Cadillac Fault (oro, cobre y níquel) y el distrito de Thetford Mines (amianto, pizarra y granito). Durante los últimos dos años, siempre en colaboración con estudiantes de maestría, ha realizado investigaciones sobre tecnologías de la información y arquitectura. El trabajo de investigación se ha recopilado en dos volúmenes titulados Arquitectura y información 2.0 (2017, 2018).