Minerals of the future
Client:
Caixa Foundation Manresa-Valentí Masachs Museum of Geology (Polytechnic University of Catalonia)
Date:
2011
Location:
Manresa, Plana de l’Om exhibition hall
Discover little-known minerals, with many present and future uses
The Caixa Foundation Manresa, together with the Valentí Masachs Museum of Geology of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, commissioned Transversal for the first exhibition dedicated to the least-known minerals with the greatest future role on our planet: “Minerals of the future”. The aim of the display was to raise awareness of these unknown greats, the “rare earth elements”, and to let visitors see how we currently use these minerals in our day-to-day life through new technologies.
Using an innovative modular design, the different minerals were separated by fields and their different uses. IPods, electric motorbikes, medicines, or solar panels, are just some of the objects which count these minerals of the future among their components.
The exhibition proposed an authentic discovery of the uses that man makes of some minerals, but above all it aimed to show just how useful they are at present and the importance they may acquire in the future. It also looked at the recycling systems of these materials and their possibilities for reuse in the immediate future.