New Mineral Collective: The Pleasure Report

New Mineral Collective: The Pleasure Report delves into the groundbreaking practice of New Mineral Collective (NMC), a collaborative art initiative by Tanya Busse and Emilija Škarnulytė, which explores the intersections of land, body, and extractive industries. This publication examines the processes and conceptual provocations underpinning NMC’s work over the past decade, including projects such as Pleasure Prospects for the 2019 Toronto Biennial and Hollow Earth (2013).

Framed by speculative futures, geotrauma healing, and counter-prospecting—an innovative act of claiming mineral rights to prevent extraction—NMC challenges destructive mining narratives by envisioning alternatives rooted in care, slowness, and reparative futures. From the corporate spectacle of the PDAC mining conference to the haunting yet utopian architecture of Ontario Place, their work reimagines landscapes—both physical and metaphorical—as spaces of resistance, memory, and pleasure. The publication offers a poetic and activist perspective on the scars of extraction, revealing how land, like the body, remembers and heals. Featuring texts by Audre Lorde, Kjerstin Uhre, Quinn Latimer, Susan Reid, and Astrida Neimanis; poetry by Cecily Nicholson; and an interview between editor Jayne Wilkinson, curator Candice Hopkins, and New Mineral Collective.