Invisible Sands: The Landscapes of Sand Extraction in the Mekong Delta (2024)
in collaboration with Minhan Lin
Despite its granular size, river sand is integral to creating the world around us. Its chemical composition and geometry make it ideal for structural concrete, rendering it a desirable material commodity. For its significance, sand lacks agency and is susceptible to the forces that make and move it. Mekong River currents transport it 4,200 kilometers from its glacial origins to the estuary, where it meets the sea, and gravity forces it to settle and form a delta. Mining companies dredge it—sometimes legally, sometimes illegally—from the riverbanks for profit. The very processes that make river sand so particularly desirable to the global sand trade are also what complicate the efforts to monitor its distribution and regulate the illegal activities that surround the trade itself. The temporal disparity between the slow geological formation of sand and its now-rapid consumption reveals the transition from a renewable resource to a finite one. The unsustainable, uneven distribution of sand underscores a dark reality: without better monitoring, we are on the path to exhausting an element once taken for granted. The global consumption of sand is captured in a 2013 photograph from China by Singapore-based artist Sim Chi Yin, featured in Shifting Sands. The uncanny landscape, scarred by extractivism, signaled its material transactional relationship with Singapore and became this project’s starting point of research.
The rapid pace of urban development and land reclamation fuels the relentless global depletion of sand. Singapore stands out as one of the largest sand importers per capita. Projects like the Tuas Port Terminal, an estimated 20 billion USD endeavor, depend on river sand to construct the colossal caissons that eventually form a retaining wall to support the piers where the ships will dock. Yet, in focusing on these monumental sites of material consumption, we overlook the less noticeable, often hidden sites of material production like the Vietnam Mekong Delta (VMD). The VMD is increasingly plagued by illegal sand mining, bringing along consequences such as coastline retreat, land subsidence, and crumbling homes. These landscapes, inextricably linked to sites of material consumption, remain obscured from our gaze, and their repercussions are often overshadowed by the spectacle of their end-use destinations. Illegal mining operations continue to expand, and these material movements prove challenging to monitor effectively.
The scale and gravity of the issue are difficult to document and comprehend—even river currents tamper with the evidence left behind by illegal mining operations. Invisible Sand: The Landscapes of Sand Extraction in the Mekong Delta examines the dynamic landscapes of extraction that render the material displacement of sand invisible. Obscured by international shipping routes, complex legal frameworks, and seasonal dredging activity, its journey through space and time reveals the transient nature of sand. While sand may play a fundamental role in shaping human and natural landscapes, it remains at the mercy of forces it cannot influence. Without effective monitoring and sustainable practices, the substance that shapes our world will continue to be seized for use elsewhere, and the little left will quietly erode.
in collaboration with Minhan Lin
Who could ever calculate the path of a molecule? How do we know that the creations of worlds are not determined by falling grains of sand? —Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Despite its granular size, river sand is integral to creating the world around us. Its chemical composition and geometry make it ideal for structural concrete, rendering it a desirable material commodity. For its significance, sand lacks agency and is susceptible to the forces that make and move it. Mekong River currents transport it 4,200 kilometers from its glacial origins to the estuary, where it meets the sea, and gravity forces it to settle and form a delta. Mining companies dredge it—sometimes legally, sometimes illegally—from the riverbanks for profit. The very processes that make river sand so particularly desirable to the global sand trade are also what complicate the efforts to monitor its distribution and regulate the illegal activities that surround the trade itself. The temporal disparity between the slow geological formation of sand and its now-rapid consumption reveals the transition from a renewable resource to a finite one. The unsustainable, uneven distribution of sand underscores a dark reality: without better monitoring, we are on the path to exhausting an element once taken for granted. The global consumption of sand is captured in a 2013 photograph from China by Singapore-based artist Sim Chi Yin, featured in Shifting Sands. The uncanny landscape, scarred by extractivism, signaled its material transactional relationship with Singapore and became this project’s starting point of research.
The rapid pace of urban development and land reclamation fuels the relentless global depletion of sand. Singapore stands out as one of the largest sand importers per capita. Projects like the Tuas Port Terminal, an estimated 20 billion USD endeavor, depend on river sand to construct the colossal caissons that eventually form a retaining wall to support the piers where the ships will dock. Yet, in focusing on these monumental sites of material consumption, we overlook the less noticeable, often hidden sites of material production like the Vietnam Mekong Delta (VMD). The VMD is increasingly plagued by illegal sand mining, bringing along consequences such as coastline retreat, land subsidence, and crumbling homes. These landscapes, inextricably linked to sites of material consumption, remain obscured from our gaze, and their repercussions are often overshadowed by the spectacle of their end-use destinations. Illegal mining operations continue to expand, and these material movements prove challenging to monitor effectively.
The scale and gravity of the issue are difficult to document and comprehend—even river currents tamper with the evidence left behind by illegal mining operations. Invisible Sand: The Landscapes of Sand Extraction in the Mekong Delta examines the dynamic landscapes of extraction that render the material displacement of sand invisible. Obscured by international shipping routes, complex legal frameworks, and seasonal dredging activity, its journey through space and time reveals the transient nature of sand. While sand may play a fundamental role in shaping human and natural landscapes, it remains at the mercy of forces it cannot influence. Without effective monitoring and sustainable practices, the substance that shapes our world will continue to be seized for use elsewhere, and the little left will quietly erode.