Black Stone Burns

Black Stone Burns weaves together the complex stories of the people and communities whose lives have been irrevocably shaped and molded by the global mining industry. Made over four years across three continents and five countries, the project starts from intimate family stories and pictures from Olga Sokal’s hometown of Belchatow in Poland. Her journey then moves across the Atlantic to the lost American dreams of Appalachian coal mining towns in the USA, where images of dioramas are coupled with the stark reality of rampant extractivist capitalism. The visual strategies behind the continued promotion of coal are investigated through an analysis of the UK’s history with the black stone, as archival advertisements are juxtaposed with the current commercials that greenwash the country’s fraught history with coal and poverty. Finally, Sokal’s exploration concludes with the vast coal mines of China and the environmental degradation caused by such large-scale extraction.