Confront Extraction: Alternative Stories of Mining is an expanding, ongoing co-created augmented reality (AR) artivist project developed with mining affected communities across South Africa. Working outside the gallery system, the project uses AR to confront the climate, social and ecological devastation caused by extractive mining.
It places community voices and lived truths directly into the public spaces and social media environments where corporate lies of responsible mining are produced and circulated. As part of the Alternative Mining Indaba during Cape Town’s Mining Indaba Week 2026, and a simultaneous protest outside Anglo American’s Johannesburg offices organised by MACUA (Mining Affected Communities United in Action), we collaborated with young activists and community members to co-create AR activations that animated buildings, statues, billboards and corporate publicity materials without physically altering them.
