Rare Earths – 17 Fragments
An artistic intervention by Philine Rinnert in collaboration with the Naturwissen network at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin
SCANDIUM, YTTRIA, LANTHANUM, CERIUM, PRASEODYM, PROMETHIUM, NEODYMIUM, SAMARIUM, EUROPIUM, GADOLINIUM, TERBIUM, DYSPROSIUM, HOLMIUM, ERBIUM, THULIUM, YTTERBIUM, LUTETIUM – 17 special metals, indispensable for digitalisation, high technology and the energy transition. At the same time, they are associated with significant environmental, health and geopolitical conflicts. Their extraction remains largely invisible, outsourced to other regions of the world and embedded in global power dynamics.
From 5 to 11 May 2026, artist Philine Rinnert will open a week-long, temporary excavation site on the grounds of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. In collaboration with the Netzwerk Naturwissen, a space of resonance for the 17 rare earth elements is being created: a place situated between art, science and social discourse.
The starting point is the narrative of the Baotou Rare Earth Museum in Baotou, northern China, which opened in 2022 in the world’s largest mining region. Officially, it tells the story of the global rare earths industry. But what is made visible there – and what remains hidden? ‘17 Fragments’ brings this question to the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. The intervention is not an exhibition of ready-made answers, but a tectonic landscape of sound, light and material, and a place of questions. Visitors move through fragments and voids, becoming co-creators themselves and entering into a relationship with geological deep time, with the origins and future of rare earths.
Through photographs, sketches, models, light, sound and scent, “17 Fragments” takes shape: sensory, performative and participatory approaches to a highly complex subject area. Accompanying events include performances, panel discussions, a reading circle, workshops and a film evening. Further details on the supporting programme will follow shortly!
For one week, the intervention opens the museum as a resonant space for ambivalence, polyphony and ignorance, inviting visitors not to dispel the invisible, but to perceive it consciously.