Reflecting on modes of energy production, the birth and death of systems, and infrastructural legacies, the project explores and exposes territorial transformations.
Designing by removal, the proposal is an engineered disintegration of the Kárahnjúkar dam in North East Iceland, perceived as the central node of the parasitic Kárahnjúkar Hydropower energy system.
The action of deconstruction does not carry the arrogance of assuming a return to a ‘pre-dam state’, rather it allows the creation of a laboratory of observation aimed at studying post-disaster ecological emergence, moving away from the misguided longing for a return to ‘nature’ in favor of a critical awareness.
Implicit within this work are questions of what qualifies as a design tool and how legislative planning can be used as an operational tool, spurring reflection on modes of production, legislation and multispecies survival within the Anthropocene.
