Tokens, 2024, installation view. Photo: Ros Kavanagh
David Beattie
David Beattie’s Tokens is a new artwork commissioned for TULCA, produced from redundant car parts and exploring the value of waste material in a carbon-based society. A series of small spherical sculptures are the result of Beattie’s smelting and extraction of precious metals from catalytic converters in automobiles. Tokens also gently refers to the site of its exhibition, at the archaeological remains of The Hall of the Red Earl in Galway. It was discovered during excavations in the 1990s that the medieval structure was reused as a furnace for iron smelting in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Beattie notes: ‘Promoted as an efficient way of reducing air pollutants in vehicles, catalytic converters contain precious metals that are resold to extract the value of these metals. Having been heavily processed initially to manufacture the original catalytic converter, the “scrap” car part is then later put through another round of extractive processes to obtain miniscule amounts of rare metals.’ Criminal gangs are often reported stealing catalytic converters before setting up makeshift smelting operations to distil their bounty. Corporate industry even attempted to claim responsible action around the topic. In 2014, Reuters released a story with the headline ‘£100,000 each year from dust swept off streets.’ It reported that every day, catalytic converters in cars spit out minute particles of platinum and palladium that end up in road sweepings gathered by waste recyclers, like industrial conglomerate Veolia. They claimed to have started filtering out these precious metals from the 40,000 tonnes of dust it treats per year. ‘We have a surface mine on our city streets,’ Estelle Brachlianoff, head of Veolia UK and Ireland, told reporters. The story was later debunked as a greenwashing exercise. Beattie reflects that, ‘In a constant state of becoming something else, these minerals highlight the commodification of natural resources, and the environmental impact of mineral extraction.’
Hall of the Red Earl
Druid Lane, Galway, H91 XV2C
2-17 November 2024
Mon-Fri 9.30-4.30pm | Sat-Sun 12-6pm
Access
Accessible venue
Accessible parking (located on St. Augustine St - 4 minute walk)
TULCA Festival of Visual Arts
The Salvage Agency
Curated by Michele Horrigan
1 - 17 November 2024
Galway, Ireland