Near rural Montalegre, an entire mountain may be destroyed to facilitate a proposed lithium mine. Situated only a few kilometers from the Rabagao drinking water reservoir, are the villages of Carvalhais and Rebordelo with the mountain between them. While on one hand, initiatives are painted green, but with extraction of any kind, there are irreversible impacts on the landscape, culture and people to be considered.

Borders are edges, divisions that separate two distinct zones: be they political, geographical, historical, social, cultural, geological, tectonic…They can be natural or manufactured, progressive or abrupt, actual or perceived, physically visible or drawn on a map, imaginary or real. Through the use of aerial and land based photogrammetry as a means to visualize and sonify both real and perceived environmental limits provides a metaphor for a systemic shift and a point of reflection of our relationship with environmental extraction. Speaking to the potential ecologically disastrous imposition of the mining and processing of lithium, Spillover investigates the divisions that separate us from our natural surroundings and the interplay between nature, culture, politics and economics.

Commissioned by Index 2022, Braga PT

Recorded thanks to a grant from La Maison de la Musique Contemporaine (MMC)