Traces of Nitrate: History and Photography Between Britain and Chile, 1879-1914

这项研究项目探讨了英国投资智利硝酸盐矿并参与其全球贩运的历史和遗产。通过对遗址、文物和图像的研究，该项目将追踪硝酸盐从阿塔卡马沙漠的oficinas(工厂)中加工的自然矿物状态经过运输的商品和股票市场交换价值的路线，最终成为伦敦豪宅和首都周围农村庄园物质和象征性遗产的一部分。它对地理上不同但历史上相互关联的景观、偏远的硝酸盐田地和大都市金融区进行了新的视听记录，并对硝酸盐的物质和视觉文化进行了分析。硝酸盐作为化肥和炸药的基本成分，与生死工业化息息相关，但关于硝酸盐的生产和贸易，包括英国商人和冒险资本家所发挥的关键作用，除了专门研究拉丁美洲经济发展的专门研究界外，还相当陌生。因此，题为“硝酸盐的痕迹”的项目直接解决了对硝酸盐工业的重要性缺乏历史了解和文化认识的问题，它通过摄影展、录像装置、公共活动方案以及针对大学部门内外利益集团的学术出版物来传播其研究成果。为了揭示这种曾经备受珍视的矿物在多大程度上处于1879年至1914年英国和智利关系的核心，以及在太平洋战争开始到第一次世界大战爆发之间的这段时期，它如何与伦敦市、利物浦港、皮萨瓜港和伊基克港的命运联系在一起，这项研究还将把硝酸盐定位于全球化进程中，这不仅是由消费文化的扩张塑造的，也是由不可再生资源的开采和枯竭塑造的。因此，项目名称的“痕迹”指的是描绘的过程以及调查的对象：物质遗骸。随着时间的推移，他们的转变将被仔细绘制，以创建硝酸盐文物的“传记”，密切关注矿产财富是如何被收集或被允许消失的，以及20世纪金融景观的保护或再生。持续的档案研究将能够识别特定的地方和物体，但这些硝酸盐行业的记录(例如，纳瓦拉Fondo Fotográfico Fundación University de Navarra的照片或市政厅图书馆Antony Gibbs父子的文件)也将作为代表性被仔细审查，这些代表部署了“外国”或“熟悉”的类别，将土地定义为商品或国家，并塑造了金融投资者的特征或硝酸盐矿工的身份。收集和分析这些空间、视觉和材料记录将表明英国和智利的历史在哪里交汇和分离，从而使人们能够深入了解记忆和忘记过去的选择性过程。硝酸盐的踪迹涉及当前学术研究的三个领域：殖民主义的视觉文化；当代摄影实践；冲突的物质文化和遗产。它的范围取决于里巴斯(PI)和珀布里克(Co-I)分别在纪实摄影和对视觉和物质文化的解释方面的不同专长，以及他们对有争议的空间和不平等分享的遗产的调查的重叠兴趣。作为该项目的一部分，他们将联合指导一名博士生。硝酸盐的痕迹是与智利、西班牙和英国的合作伙伴合作进行的：UNIACC大学、圣地亚哥、纳瓦拉大学、潘普洛纳、维雷纳中心、巴塞罗那、开放眼廊、利物浦。

This research project explores the histories and legacies of British investment in Chilean nitrate mines and involvement in its global trafficking. Through an examination of sites, artefacts and images, the project will trace nitrate's route from natural mineral state processed in the oficinas (works) of the Atacama desert through transported commodity and stock market exchange value to become, ultimately, part of the material and symbolic inheritances of London mansions and of estates in the capital's surrounding countryside. It undertakes new audio and visual documentation of geographically disparate but historically connected landscapes, remote nitrate fields and metropolitan financial districts, accompanied by an analysis of nitrate's material and visual culture. As a basic ingredient of both fertilizers and explosives, nitrate was intimately connected with the industrialization of life and death, yet an account of its production and trade, including the pivotal role played by British merchant houses and adventure capitalists, is quite unfamiliar beyond specific research communities devoted to Latin America economic development. Thus, the project entitled Traces of Nitrate, directly addresses a lack of historical understanding and cultural awareness of the significance of the nitrate industry by disseminating its research through a photographic exhibition, video installation, programme of public events as well as scholarly publications aimed at interest groups in and outside the university sector. Seeking to uncover the extent to which a once highly prized mineral was at the centre of the relationship between Britain and Chile between 1879 and 1914 and how, in this period between the beginning of the Pacific War and the outbreak of the First World War, it was connected to fortunes of City of London, ports of Liverpool, Pisagua and Iquique, the research will also locate nitrate within a process of globalization shaped not only by the expansion of consumer culture but also by the extraction and depletion of non-renewable resources. The 'trace' of the project's title thus refers to a process of delineation as well as to the objects of inquiry: the physical remains. Their transformation over time will be carefully mapped to create 'biographies' of nitrate artefacts, paying close attention to how mineral wealth has been collected or allowed to disappear and to the preservation or regeneration of twentieth century landscapes of finance. Sustained archival research will enable the identification of particular places and objects but these records of nitrate industry (for example, photographs within the Fondo Fotográfico Fundación Universidad de Navarra or papers of Antony Gibbs and Son, Guildhall Library) will be also scrutinized as representations that deploy categories of the 'foreign' or 'familiar', define land as a commodity or as a nation and cast the character of the financial investor or identity of nitrate miner. Assembling and analyzing these spatial, visual and material records will indicate where British and Chilean histories converge and separate allowing insights into the selective process of remembering and forgetting the past.Traces of Nitrate engages with three fields of current academic inquiry: visual cultures of colonialism; contemporary photographic practice; the material culture and heritage of conflict. Its scope is dependent upon the different expertise of Ribas (PI) and Purbrick (Co-I) in documentary photography and the interpretation of visual and material culture, respectively, and their overlapping interest in the investigation of contested spaces and unequally shared legacies. As part of the project, they will jointly supervise a doctoral student. Traces of Nitrate is conducted in collaboration with partners in Chile, Spain and Britain: Universidad UNIACC, Santiago, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool.