Today, there is a global lithium mining boom driven by the development of autonomous vehicles. There is an open-pit lithium mining currently under construction in Nevada called Thacker Pass Project. However, the lithium mining process at this site Thacker Pass raises various cultural and environmental issues around land sovereignty and water resources. For phase 1, the sacred site for Native Amercians called ‘Red mountain people’ will be destroyed and 1.7 billion gallons of groundwater annually from the Quinn River aquifer will be pumped which means it is already over-allocated ground water basin. For phase 2, 40 years later after the mining closes, there will be a huge amount of tailings piled up on the mining site, which has a potential damage of leaking toxic chemicals such as sulfuric acid. To address the current damages related to the phase 1 being inflicted on the site called “Sentinel Rock” the project addresses the obstacles for the protesting. The proposal seeks to raise awareness about these damages to the world through the media. In today’s media environment of instagrammable locations and media-spectacles, the installation will provide more intrigue to the site.
