Shifting Grounds

The Shifting Grounds Festival is an art and performance event that took place on the reclaimed slag heap at the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex. This site, a significant testament to industrial mining, is now a habitat for a growing number of plant and animal species. As part of the Shifting Grounds Festival, the slag heap becomes a laboratory for the future, a place for participation, and a space of possibility for social and ecological regeneration. The festival program—which includes artistic and dance performances as well as discussion forums and nature walks—explores themes at the intersection of the present, the extractive past of coal mining, and the possible regenerative futures of the slag heap.