With Critical Minerals – Geography of Energy, Italian photographer and artist Davide Monteleone turns his attention to one of the least visible aspects of the energy transition: the extraction of the minerals essential to the technologies intended to move us away from fossil fuels.

Lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel and rare earth elements are crucial to the production of batteries, electric vehicles and much of the infrastructure associated with renewable energy. Through landscapes, extraction sites and the communities living nearby, Monteleone traces the new geographies being shaped by the global race for these strategic resources.

His work highlights the tensions and paradoxes of a transition presented as ‘green’, yet dependent on the ever-increasing exploitation of the Earth’s mineral resources, bringing its own environmental, social and geopolitical consequences. Behind the technologies and promises of a low-carbon future, we discover transformed landscapes, power relations and communities directly confronted with the cost of this shift. Critical Minerals – Geography of Energy invites us to consider what our energy future demands elsewhere – and to ask under what conditions a transition can truly be sustainable.