Extraction (2017 ~)
"Froslie’s recent work derives from an ongoing process of exploring matter and its transmutability in order to investigate critically the aesthetics of capital. In his studio, Froslie may resemble a twenty-first century alchemist more than he does an artist as he makes use of highly specialized tools and very particular chemicals to remove from discarded scraps of technology a number of precious metals — gold, silver, copper, tantalum — that he then puts to new uses in ongoing experiments that mix science with pseudo-science to reflect on the procedures by which capitalism generates and consolidates wealth. Foremost among these are extraction, growth, and circulation, each of which Froslie pursues in ways that reveal surprising things about our economy’s reliance on an aesthetics that, when and where it holds sway, organizes human societies and their fraught entanglements with nature to accord with its precepts: a perverse kind of beauty that corresponds to the separation, concentration, and movement of what is declared to have value." - Robert Bailey, 'Extract, Grow, Circulate: Pete Froslie and the Aesthetics of Capital'
Ny - London, or Camp Mansfield. 78° 57' N 12° 00' E
The story of the mining settlement of London and the marble deposits on the island of Blomstrandhalvøya is bound to the English company the Northern Exploration Company and the adventurer Ernest Mansfield. The marble deposits were discovered in the summer of 1906 and described as “no less than an island of pure marble”.
The marble quarry was established in 1911. In a few years, intense labor was invested to get the plant and operation up and running. The marble seemed promising, and experts from around the world praised the quality and beauty of the stone. Expectations were big and high economic yields were anticipated. Machines, railway, wagons, cranes, winches, heavy steam engines, tools and equipment for operations were brought in. Private houses for up to 70 people, workshop buildings and storage facilities were built. Nevertheless, the amount of marble quarried never reached an commercially important level during the years of operations. During the years of the war in 1914-1918 there was no activity in the marble quarry and ended in 1920.
Mine outside of Lida, Nevada
Lida enjoyed two boom periods. Like nearby Palmetto, Lida was first founded in the late 1860's, an outgrowth of the Aurora boom. It boomed again in the first decade of the 20th century, it being rejuvenated during the Tonopah / Goldfield boom. Mexican and Indian prospectors were working small claims in the Lida region and in nearby Tule Canyon prior to 1867, when American prospectors organized a district. The townsite of Lida was laid out in 1872 and began to gather all the trappings of an outpost town.
Pyramiden, Svalbard
Soviet mining Ghost town
