In order for the public to understand ‘Certej (is) Mine’, it is necessary to present a short history of [current] events. At the end of 2013, Romanians took Romanians by surprise by protesting en-masse against a mining project set to take place at Rosia Montana, involving the use of cyanide to extract gold, wiping a whole mountain out in the process. There are a few key elements to consider here: the fact that the Government was willing to change longstanding laws to aid corporations (a change to the environmental law and one that permits a company to take the land from you by any means necessary should they suspect that there are valuable minerals present underground) and that people are repeating history in their favour this time around. Such protests only took place 13 years prior and they were called ‘mineriade’, a term coined by Romanians to specifically name the brutal repression of anti-political protests carried out by miners against students and intellectuals and, well, anybody who was ‘lucky’ enough to be in their way while they were executing orders given by then-President Ion Iliescu (an ex-Communist himself).
Miners in Romania have a tradition of not having it easy. Even though the country has been a major exporter of minerals and oil for the last few centuries, once these were in the hands of the Communist Party, the rules changed and everything was under constant supervision.
The Certej mining disaster happened at 4.55 AM , October 30th 1971, when a tailings dam ruptured after years of uncontrolled spilling of cyanide compounds used at the neighbouring mine, wiping out everything in it’s way, including the small mining village. This led to 89 people dying, according to the Party, although true numbers go even as high as 221 (officially, after trying as much as possible to cover what is widely seen today as the biggest ecological disaster in modern Romanian history, the number was 48, just short of enough dead to declare it as a national day of mourning, so that production would not have to stop).
When the Rosia Montana situation started making headlines, the story of Certej was unearthed. Archive photos show tamperings with the original negatives and the numbers don’t add up. The fact of the matter is that, due to the Party’s neglect and lack of insight, miners and their families were reduced to mere naked bodies washed up several miles from their beds at night. ‘Mine’ is a key word here, with its dual meaning: something that belongs to me and the action of digging into the land. In Romanian, it’s meaning is similar: ‘mine’ is a very intimate way of saying ‘me’, while defining mines as well. Our land is part of us. You cannot take a land that is mine (even though, in all earnest, you probably will). Float. Transparent plastic foil, paint made from contaminated soil from the Certej site. 5 x 4 x 5 m. 2015