HoC Art Tuesdays: For What It's Worth By Dillon Marsh

Photography and computer generated technologies join forces in Cape Town based Artist, Dillon Marsh‘s, ‘For What It’s Worth‘, installation. The embodiment of the resources of a copper mine located within the landscapes, highlight the sacrifice and rewards that mines give birth to. Using CGI technology Marsh creates a scale model that symbolizes the exact mass of materials removed from the mine. The sphere that occupies the terrain illustrates how much mass actually was extracted from the earth’s ground. According to Marsh, ‘the intention [behind his work] is to create a kind of visualization of the merits and shortfalls of mining in South Africa, an industry that has shaped the history and economy of the country so radically.‘

Whether you refer to these spheres as a new wave of commerce and community that began with the operation of the blue mine in springbok, in 1852 or scars in the landscape as a result of depleting the resources of the land and leaving an uncertain future to the new small towns that were generated from the opportunity that once spawned its creation by 2007; one thing that is for sure; the play between beauty and destruction that emanates from mining has been internalized by an authentic and soul-bearing Artist for the world to witness and learn from.

Check out Marsh’s compelling work and revel in the feeling of awe, wonder and memory that is conveyed in his installations in South Africa as we continue to grapple with the complex relationship humans have with the environment.

💙Blue Mine, Springbok
1852 to 1912
3,535 tons of copper extracted