Growing Mountain
Aggeneys
South Africa, 2018

The village of Aggeneys was established in the 1970s to service a mine. It lies in the Northern Cape of South Africa, far from the main lines on the map, yet directly on top of a vein of metal that has shaped the area for decades. Its driving force is Black Mountain Mining, an underground base metals operation producing mainly lead, zinc and copper, with silver as a byproduct, and which, together with the surrounding deposits, defines an entire ore region.

Later, Gamsberg Mine was added, a large open pit zinc mine that opened in 2019 and is usually presented as an industrial leap forward. The mines are located in and around an ecologically sensitive area, the Succulent Karoo, known for rare species and a landscape that appears empty, but is in fact extremely precise. In that characteristic Northern Cape contrast, hard infrastructure in soft light, the geometry of roads, verges, fences and tailings takes on an almost self evident quality, making mining feel less like a single activity and more like a climate that quietly determines the village’s daily rhythm, horizon and sense of the future.