BRIAR M. PINE
Rare Earth
Rare Earth (2025), is an ongoing project investigating Rare Earth Mining in the US. The term, ‘rare earth’, refers to the mineral elements used to make electronics, magnets, and other technologies. Mountain Pass Mine is an increasingly complicated landscape located in the Mojave Desert. Mountain Pass Mine began small-scale operations in 1952 but turned hands and closed multiple times due to economic strife. It re-opened in 2018 after China limited the production of rare earths because of high environmental costs, creating the rare earth crisis of 2010-2014. However, much of the material was shipped to China to undergo the toxic separation process. In 2022, the United States Department of Defense awarded MP Materials $35 Million to build a separation facility to keep the entire processing of rare earth within the states. This project was initiated in stages, and is currently in Stage II, allowing MP Materials to produce separated NdPr, cerium, and lanthanum products at Mountain Pass Mine. Additionally, another facility was recently constructed in Fort Worth, TX, and has since begun manufacturing magnets. This speaks to the complicated geopolitical relationships between land, technology, military power, and international relations.
I traveled to Mountain Pass Mine in 2024. While I was there, I made images of the mine and the surrounding landscape. I also created the video and textile piece (Im)material (2025), which utilizes the high desert landscape surrounding Mountain Pass Mine to dye prepared fabric with the soil containing rare earth minerals. Throughout the video, the viewer is confronted with found footage of Mountain Pass sourced from news outlets and Google Earth alongside footage of the textile dye process taking place with Mountain Pass as the backdrop. The footage is accompanied by a greenwashing, corporate voice narrating the operation of rare earth mining. Marketing of new technologies often positions them as post-carbon, efficient, and green. This is hyper-evident in the audio’s omnipresent voice which links the dyeing process to the extractive practice of mining and highlights the materiality of the landscape. The juxtaposition between the found audio and video footage alongside the filming of the dye process, highlights the material consequences of our digital media.