Collaboration of Artists

I sit in my living room, typing this essay on my laptop. The brand of the device is unimportant, but the computer as a nexus of technological, historical, political, and personal histories is. In this internet age, instruments, such as computers, signify a connectedness. Social media messages allow us to keep up with friends and family (and complete strangers). Email collapses global distances. Databases and libraries make information more immediately accessible than ever. My computer links me to all of these things, and it is this computer that is connecting me to you. As you read these words and activate their meaning in your mind, we bridge time, space, and consciousness together. Taking this further, allow me to connect you, through me and this laptop, to longer and broader histories—beyond our immediate present, and our visible surroundings into some distant and obfuscated trails that led to you reading this essay.

“We are stardust, billion year old carbon.”1 –Joni Mitchell

As the universe evolves, stars are born and die, consuming and emitting matter. When a star begins to run out of nuclear fuel, its core’s mass grows to the point that the outward pressure from the burning of the fuel cannot balance with the inward pressure of gravity and it collapses as a supernova. It is thought that during this collapse, elements such as copper, gold, and lead are forged and then dispersed through the universe in the subsequent explosion of cosmic dust. The copper peppering the Earth’s crust and found in our bodies arrived from these distant supernovae.

From this vantage in space, looking toward the Earth, a gaping maw is visible on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley in Utah—a giant pit clawed from a mountain with a halo of displaced earth in concentric steps cascading from the opening. This is the Kennecott mine, which is one of the largest open-pit mines in the world and referred to as “the richest hole on Earth.”2 Since 1903, workers have been methodically blasting and grinding the mountain to dust so that they can sift through the remains for precious ores.3 Their primary harvest is copper, resulting in approximately 7% of the world’s annual copper—the same copper which traveled millions of miles from a dead star to the Earth.4

The hunger for copper was fueled for its usefulness as an alloy, in new telephone lines, and for conducting electricity. Over the decades, there has been more need for copper as electrical appliances have multiplied and more wiring is needed for those appliances. The global uses of copper are in construction and electrical. Our homes and devices have copper veins running through them—a network of interconnected lines spreading through our cities.

When a hole is dug, the dirt must go someplace. As Kennecott continued to dig for precious metals, the mine purchased tens of thousands of acres for the displaced earth and mining runoff.5 The profitable yield from mining is referred to as the “head.” The remnants are referred to as the “tail,” and Kennecott has a sizable tail. In an environmental report on Kennecott published in 1997 by the Mineral Policy Center, it was stated that "years of toxic drainage from waste rock piles contributed to a massive groundwater pollution plume that extends for 70 square miles."6 In 2004, Kennecott Land (a subsidiary of Kennecott mine’s parent company Rio Tinto) began a large planned-community development on Kennecott’s tail. Named Daybreak, this housing project is painted as a suburban idyll—a lake at the center, homes in an array of styles, pristine stores, churches, recreation centers, and all copper power and phone lines buried underground to keep the view uncluttered, all new and clean. The lack of visible history is intentional, because the history is one of toxic runoff and contaminated brownfields. Daybreak was created for public relations and remediation.

Families are being planted in Daybreak and memories made. This will be home for many, and a place to which they return if they leave. It is also a location of industrial dumping, and before that, it had been settled by pioneers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Before that, it was indigenous land. Place is a potent ingredient for nostalgia

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