Unexpected Landscapes. Wastelands as ‘buffer zones’ for the future

Mining operations at Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, 2009 by Arbyreed. License: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Land worldwide is deeply marked human activity, which became heavier, harder, more wasteful, and permanent after the industrial revolution. The landscapes of Anthropocene encompass riddled proving ground test sites, nuclear wastelands, immense open-pit mines, contaminated lands, disappearing bodies water, boundless landfills, discarded territories. These grounds are growth, production, destruction: sceneries where show quarrying, discharge, stockpile, abandonment, drainage, burial staged. However, this rush to exhaustion giving shape landscape tomorrow: examination unforeseen uses values attributed in current age some these ‘sceneries consumption’ – Mine near Salt Lake City; former Fresh Kills landfill New York; decommissioned Templehof Airport Berlin– suggest they may play unpredictable cultural strategic roles next future.