The Breath of Metal: Baiyin - what the mine left behind
Dakang Wang
HFG Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design
My artistic practice explores the relationships between metal, mining, and the intertwined histories of family and city. Metal functions in my work both as material and as language, carrying weight, sound, and time, while preserving traces of political and labor processes embedded within it. I grew up in Baiyin, Gansu Province, China, known as the “Copper City,” an industrial town shaped by mining. Several generations of my family worked in the mines, in smelting, and in ore processing. These personal histories do not appear in my work as nostalgia, but as a structural framework that shapes my understanding of materiality, body, and urban space. In my work, the mine is not merely a geographic site, but an evolving system: from ore to metal, from metal to infrastructure, from infrastructure to city, and eventually to ruin. Methodologically, I begin with photography, archives, and the material itself. I work on site in mining regions, photograph and collect ores, discarded metals, tools, and industrial remnants, alongside family photographs and historical documents. These materials are recontextualized in the studio under controlled light, where they detach from their original function and become a form of “suspended evidence.” My practice spans photography, video, sound, and installation. Photography operates as a process of extraction and transformation rather than mere documentation. Video and sound introduce time, breath, vibration, and industrial rhythms. Through layering these media, I investigate how resources shape cities, environments, bodies, and how mining histories persist, even as they gradually disappear into the ground and the archive.