Years of Life Lost
MULTIMEDIA INSTALLATION | 2021
Years of Life Lost is a multimedia installation that visualizes the toxic aftermath of corporate mining in rural, low-income, predominantly communities of color throughout Arizona. Slag, a mining byproduct that is left behind in massive mounds of waste, is interjected into glass bones, representing the years of life lost by people living near waste due to the harmful chemicals that enter their body without their consent.
Rose and Landon Eitemiller (mother and 14-year-old son pictured in the display case) are residents in the mining town of Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona where they were served water with arsenic and nitrate levels exceeding regulatory standards for over a decade and lived in a yard polluted with arsenic and lead. Landon was tested and found to have arsenic (above the 95th percentile) and lead in his urine and nails.
A result of kiln-casting slag and glass together, the slag causes the glass to crack, forming intricate spider web patterns.
The cracked nature of the bones embodies one of the many potential health effects of chronic chemical exposure: weak and brittle bones (most commonly associated with lead).
The slag interjected into the bones epitomizes how the body carries the burden of corporate pollution that shapes people’s health, exposures, and opportunities.
