The Center of Art Experiences Pozu Santa Bárbara (PZSB) in Mieres (Asturias), located in La Rebaldana, Turón, is the first mining pit in Spain recognized as a Cultural Heritage Site (BIC) with the highest level of heritage protection since 2008. Since 2021, it has evolved into a benchmark for contemporary artistic interventions.
Next Thursday, May 14 de mayo PZSB will reopen its doors to the exhibition La revuelta y la nieve, by Gijón-based artist Dionisio González, conceived and produced specifically for this venue as an experience designed to rethink mining in the digital age. The exhibition has been organized by the Town Council of Mieres and curated by L.E.V. (Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual).
La revuelta y la nieve takes Asturian underground as its starting point: a place where geological and symbolic dimensions converge, where seams of coal, labour and collective memory lie compressed together. Dionisio González descends into those laeyers to propose a journey in three chapters: one that excavates the mining past, envisions an architecture that never was, and peers into the digital future already taking root in the abandoned galleries.
The first chapter departs from the mine as a space where earth, body and history excavate one another. The documentary La revuelta y la nieve: Camus y la Cuenca Asturiana weaves together the thought of Albert Camus —co-author of Révolte dans les Asturies (1935)— with a coral account of Asturian mining: from the October 34 insurrection to nationalisation, the great strikes under Franco, the closure of the Pozu Santa Bárbara itself in 1995, and its subsequent ruin.
The second chapter —a series of projected models, holograms and photographies— imagines what the coalfields might have looked like had the workers’ housing been born from the logic of the mining craft, rather than from generic models. Drawing from two complementary typologies, arquitectura del oficio (craft architecture) and arquitectura negra (black architecture), González proposes a fresh perspective on popular housing that redefines the dominant aesthetic canon. A “eutopian suburbia” of slate, pigmented concrete and steel, where the house extends the mine rather than denying it. Galleries become streets, pits become courtyards, engine rooms become communal facilities.
The exhibition closes with a multi-screen installation that reveals the heavy, territorial and opaque nature of the Asturian cloud and the literalness of data mining. An immersive experience that envisions the conversion of inactive underground galleries into digital infrastructure. Data centers, cloud computational facilities, technology labs and subterranean greenhouses replacing coal extraction with the extraction, storage and processing of data.
Taken together, La Revuelta y la Nieve asks how Asturias might become an example of global shift. A transition that displaces the idea of progress and invites us to look underground once more —a world that does not end with the closing of the mines. Because the digital future is not only up in the clouds, but also beneath our feet.
_About Dionisio González
Dionisio González (Gijón, 1965) is a multidisciplinary artist, lecturer and holder of a PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Seville. His work lies at the intersection of photography, digital architecture, installation and film, and explores ways of inhabiting the contemporary city by reinventing landscapes and proposing architectural interventions in real-world settings. Recognised with awards such as Pilar Juncosa and Sotheby’s Prize and European Month of Photography Arendt Award, his work is held in the collections of the Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid), the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago) and the National Centre for Contemporary Art (Paris), amongst other institutions.
Arranged by:
Ayuntamiento de Mieres
Curated by:
L.E.V. (Laboratorio de Electrónica Visual)
Credits:
Camera assistants: Marta Verde Baqueiro, Ricardo Ausso Burguete, Tomeu Mora
Acknowledgements:
LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Location:
Pozu Santa Bárbara, La Rebaldana, Turón (Mieres, Asturias)
Dates:
From May 14 to August 16
Schedule:
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 16:30 to 21:00 h
Saturday, Sundays and and holidays: 11:00 to 14:00 h |16:30 to 21:00 h
Free entrance
