Figure 1 Unknown Fields at work in the London Sculpture Workshop. The mud taken from a radioactive tailings lake in Inner Mongolia contains a cocktail of acids, heavy metals, carcinogens, and radioactive material. More

Figure 2   A painted wall mural, artist unknown, on the exterior of a local wall becomes the visible sign of a recent unbroken history of democratically elected communism in Kerala since 1957. Politics can still be seen manifested in the faded hammer-and-sickle murals of Fort Kochi, now covered More

Figure 5   This hand-painted statement, artist unknown, on the exterior of a local wall in Fort Kochi was surrounded by several commissioned street art projects and acted as a potent device when you consider what the Kochi-Muziris Biennale's legacy might be for local artists. During the festival More

Figure 4 Baotou, China, 2014: film still from Rare Earthenware (2014) showing Unknown Fields collecting radioactive mud from the tailings lake at the outflow of Baogang Iron and Steel Corporation. The mud was used to craft the set of three ceramic vessels. More

Figure 4 Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Touch Sanitation Performance , July 24, 1979–June 26, 1980. Citywide performance with eighty-five hundred sanitation workers across all fifty-nine New York City Sanitation districts. Landfill (location and date unknown). Photograph by Deborah Freedman. © Mierle More