Mining Matter/s

The contemporary artist Bonnie Devine (b 1952), a member of the Serpent River First Nation in Ontario, Canada, works in a wide range of media to address the cultural and environmental consequences of uranium mining that occurred in her community. Uranium extraction in the area has resulted in numerous devastations, including radioactive contamination of all fifty-five miles of the Serpent River. In this study, I use ecocritical methodologies to examine how local environmental conditions, Anishinaabe cosmologies, and histories of Cold War resource extraction inform Devine’s animated film Rooster Rock: The Story of Serpent River (2002). The work demonstrates her intensive investigation of the unique properties of uranium, its effect on place, beings and ontologies, and the ways Ontarian uranium mining dovetails with the artist’s personal history. Additionally, this article calls attention to divergent and overlapping modes of knowledge and valuation practiced by Indigenous and Euro-American participants in this history.