I have never seen such iridescent light as radiated in the sky above San Pedro de Atacama at sunset.

It is an immense lapse of time ruled by the sun and the dryness of the air at an altitude of three thousand meters. Between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., the rocks and the surrounding desert are irradiated with shades of yellow, indigo, violet, green, and blue that my camera refuses to register.

Atacama desert, 2023, ©Davide Monteleone

And then the night, also irradiated, this time, by the sole light of infinite stars.

The sound of Carmelo's Pututo, an ancient melody that accompanies the rituals of the local populations linked to water, bounces between the canyon walls sculpted by millennia-old rivulets of water that no longer exist. These mountains are co-equal with the stars, whose light refracts on the expanse of the salt flat.

The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the driest places in the world and among the world's largest deposits of copper and lithium.

I was in this magical place between April and May, after months of research to begin the first two chapters of "Critical Minerals", a collaborative, transmedia project that investigates the environmental, social and economic implications of the growing demand for resources necessary for the transition to green and renewable energy.

Shade of Lithium, 2023. ©Davide Monteleone.

This journey to Chile documents the story of two of these resources and their relationship with the area's territory, history, and communities.

Chapter One: Cu (Copper)

The history of Chuquicamata, one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the world, began in 1910 with the Guggenheim family's establishment of the 'Chile Exploration Company’. The mine and the establishment of the mining town created an economic and social system of a 'state within a state'. In 1971 President Allende came to power and nationalised the country's copper resources. Two years later, Allende was overthrown, and Pinochet's military dictatorship began.

Over the years, the city has been covered with copper mining waste, and the last resident of Chuquicamata was evacuated in 2006.

Trailer “Critical Minerals - Copper” ©Studio Davide Monteleone

Chapter Two: Li (Lithium)

Lithium miners must process around 30,000 liters of brine water to produce 10 kg of Lithium.

An average EV vehicle requires around 15kg of Lithium. Replacing the world’s estimated 1.5 billion conventional-fuelled vehicles with electric vehicles will require about 15,000,000 tonnes of lithium. SQM and Albemarle, the two mining companies operating in the Atacama salt flat, produced 40000 tons of Lithium in 2022. While communities near the extraction site experience water cuts for days during the summer, Albemarle and SQM are licensed to extract 2,000 liters of water per second.

Indigenous communities that have inhabited the region for millennia acknowledge the role of climate change in further water scarcity but accuse mining companies of being among the main culprits.

“In Chile, lithium extraction has been regarded as a regular type of mining, as if you were extracting hard rock. But this is not regular mining – it is water mining”.

Ingrid Garcés, professor of engineering at Chile’s University of Antofagasta