Radiant Grounds

Radiant Grounds is about a highly controversial proposed rare earth/uranium mine in Southern Greenland. The projects long history is explored through traditional documentary photography as well as experimental approaches such as radiography.

The small town of Narsaq in southern Greenland has been caught up in geopolitics. Beneath the steep slopes of the surrounding fjords lies a treasure: vast quantities of rare earth elements but also uranium. The deposit on the Kvanefjeld Plateau is the world’s second-largest rare earth deposit and the sixth-largest uranium deposit at the same time.

The discovery has brought the region into the international spotlight: China sought to buy the mining licenses from the current license holders and U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his claim to the entire island state following the 2024 U.S. election. The Kvanefjeld deposit could help break China’s quasi-monopoly on rare earth metals on the global market, making it highly attractive to international actors such as the United States and the European Union.

For the local communities, who mainly rely on sheep farming and hunting, the planned open-pit mine poses an existential threat to their way of life. Their resistance has deep roots dating back to the 1970s. The colonial power Denmark considered using uranium from the deposit for its nuclear program until the mid-1980s, before abandoning the program for economic reasons.

Renewed protests against the planned rare earth mining beginning in 2015 contributed to a change of government in Greenland in 2021. The uranium law passed after the election effectively prohibits the extraction of rock containing radioactive components. However, the law remains controversial and can be renegotiated by any new government. At the same time, the license holder Energy Transition Minerals (formerly Greenland Minerals) has filed a $7.67 billion lawsuit against the state of Greenland, claiming that the law amounts to expropriation and deprives the company of its expected profits.

As Greenland continues to move toward greater independence from Denmark, the issue of mining and the anticipated revenues remains a central and contentious question for the country’s future.

In his work Radiant Grounds, photographer Jan Richard Heinicke explores this long-standing conflict through documentary photography, experimental methods such radiography and scanning electron microscopy and archival material.