This video of Hartmut Veit’s “COAL” MFA Graduate Exhibition 2017 at VCA Art Space (Victorian College of the Arts 2017 at University of Melbourne) investigates the complex web of social and political changes affecting communities in transition from the impact of the closure of coal-fired power stations in the Latrobe Valley. Using coal as an artistic medium, this research demonstrates coal’s material agency in shaping experience, relations and discourse. The exhibition and complementary thesis enacts Bruno Latour’s concept of “eine Gedankenausstellung”– a thought experiment and exhibition of philosophical ideas.
COAL Catalogue essay: “ Thirty Million Carbon Stories, Stacked To Slender Crest” © Abbra Kotlarczyk