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God is in the Mountains

(2021), single channel 3D rendered animation

While lithium-ion batteries are projected to power our green future, I question whose territories will be left powerless in this contradictory return. Reading Todd C. Frankel’s Washington Post investigation into lithium-ion supply chains, I learn that the mining of manganese, cobalt, lithium, and graphite relies on the extreme exploitation of basic human rights.

In this examination of power—both industrial and metaphorical—I position the battery as a quasi-religious entity. Through composited, looped animations set against Google-blue skies, it becomes a traveller across power, environment, territory, and technology.

I have been taught that technology is powerful—a gateway to the infinite—but I am no longer certain. As one farmer affected by graphite mining reflects, “God is in the mountains. When mining comes and the grassland is dug up, people believe worse disasters will follow. It destroys the mountain god.”

Funded by SIGNAL Arts, City of Melbourne.

Music by Luke Morton 
Photography Lu Spent
I respectfully acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land - the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung People of the Kulin Nation, their spirits, ancestors, elders and community members past and present.
Always was, always will be, Aboriginal Land. 


© Jenn Tran 2026