Death Metal is an animated version of an illustration collaboratively created by myself and Charity Edwards for publication alongside our article by the same name in Kerb Journal. 

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An overview of Death Metal is as follows: 

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Deborah Bird Rose outlines the concept of ‘shimmer’ across Indigenous and Western modes of existence as an aesthetic characteristic of a lively, pulsating world; rather than a world composed of gears and cogs for human use. We contend across the globe the precious metal gold has lost its shimmer. From the greed and exploitation of gold rushes to investment safe-havens during crises, as well as a key material ingredient for dreams of technoscientific progress, it has been instrumentalised to serve humanity’s ugliest sides. With demand poised to increase significantly over coming decades, in this project we consider gold outside its sociocultural and technofuture identities to rediscover the metal as a productive and lively part of the biosphere. We work to map ‘valueless’ gold relations from its unearthly origins within meteors, and reveal its ‘enchantment’ - as Jane Bennett would have us do -  embedded within earth systems. That is, combined with ores, absorbed through bodies, expressed in breastmilk, and projecting forward as a dazzling, seductive metal delighting in mutual encounters; working to decompose, or better yet, ‘mineralise’ anthropocentric design practices.  

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To read more about Death Metal, click here for the Catalogue from the group exhibition Sediment at Metro Arts in May 2021.