The Resonant Mine

The structure of this paper centers around the fieldwork and shooting process of my documentary, 11 Underground, which is based on a mining strike in my hometown Almadén (Ciudad Real, southern Spain), in the summer of 1984. On 30 July 1984, 11 mercury miners locked-in in the local mercury mines to protest against their precarious economic and social conditions. 650 meters deep inside the oldest and most prolific mercury mines in the world's history, the miners endured the dark and contaminated galleries for 11 days and nights until their claims were addressed. As an emigrated local filmmaker, I returned to post-industrial Almadén to make a documentary film about the mining strike. After considering different methodologies, the eventual premise takes the form of a what if reenacted scenario: what if 11 young locals will lock-in underground now for 11 whole days to pay homage to the old miners and recreate the experience of 1984, 35 years later? Apart from engaging our collective mining past, performing the form and duration of a previous workers' strike, 11 Underground aims to propose the underground as a living and symbolic space to foster a series of conversations, encounters, and social and political propositions to reimagine Almadén, which rose from a mine shaft more than 2000 years ago, as 'something else besides' a mining town. Two main methodologies mix in 11 Underground. On the one hand, it can be presented as a loose reenactment that reproduces the form and duration of a past strike: 11 people confined inside a mine for 11 whole days. On the other hand, its speculative character (i.e., the what if scenario) opens these 11 days to the unexpected, to new actions and directions that might emerge from the implementation of that what if into the town’s present reality. The intrinsic relation of reenactment with the past, together with the future-oriented nature of what if scenarios as ways of engaging creatively with alternatives and possibilities, are, in fact, representative and metaphorical of the current situation of Almadén, which tries to construct a future from the remains of the mining past, while deeply struggling with the negative consequences of the lack of structural plans after the end of mining. The notion of echoes and resonances is essential for this artistic research. Besides the proper echoes and resonances characteristic of the underground tunnels in which most of the project is set, the what if premise of the project has the concept of resonance at its core.