This project arises from a long family history of entanglement with Coal. From the Scottish mining town of Falkirk to the Denniston Plateau on Te Tai Poutini, the West Coast, Noel Meek’s ancestry has staked its livelihood on Coal’s extraction from the earth to feed the furnaces of industry.

Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington-based Meek’s practice explores what it might mean to extend care to the more-than-human – entities that inhabit the world alongside us, asking how our ethics might expand to include non-sentient beings, including Coal.

In a closely shot video work, Coal is presented as an intricate landscape, exploring its textures and surface lustre. Coal ‘speaks’ through an imagined first-person monologue. Scores asking us to ‘Witness’, ‘Stand in Solidarity’, and ‘Find Intimacy With’ Coal suggest potential ways of relating to this ancient substance. The works ask if humans can find common ground with Coal and move from an exploitative relationship to a collaborative one.

Meek asks us to acknowledge our intimately bound histories and futures so that we may accept even the mineral world as kin.

Main image: Noel Meek, the cuckoo sings for me, for the mountain, 2026, 4K video still

Left image: Noel Meek, Coal Score (intimacy), 2025, digital image