Instagram story viewer> @miller.kovacs> Posts

Liz Miller Kovacs

@miller.kovacs

3K

followers

1443

following

Artist📍Berlin | Honolulu
Not AI

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Download All

To celebrate World Photography Day, we’re spotlighting artists from Fotografiska Emerging and the work they’ve submitted to Foto of the Day.

Today’s featured image is by @miller.kovacs

"‘Cerro Colorado Madonna', 2025

I hiked to the rim of the Cerro Colorado mine in Huelva, Spain, where I photographed myself wrapped in fabric.
Mined for copper, silver, and pyrite since Roman times, the site is now owned by Atalaya Mining. Its tailings dams span over 500 hectares, carry an ongoing risk of failure, and feed the acid discharge staining the Tinto and Odiel river basins.
Shot entirely in camera, no AI."

To be part of next week's selection, submit your image via the link in bio. by @miller.kovacs

1k

54

a month ago

#DerGreif18ArtistFeature: Meet Liz Miller Kovacs (@miller.kovacs), one of the 90 artists published in our upcoming Issue 18: “Tomorrow is Today,” guest-edited by renowned conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas (@hankwillisthomas), supported by Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung (@alexander.tutsek_stiftung). 📖

Liz Miller Kovacs is a photographer and artist from Los Angeles, now based in Berlin. Her practice explores the intersections of landscape, industry, and memory, tracing how extraction reshapes both terrain and identity. Initially drawn to photography at 17 with a vintage 35mm camera, Liz returned to the medium to investigate sites transformed by mining, an inquiry rooted in her Hungarian family’s history of coal mining and migration. 🌍

Since 2020, she has been documenting remote industrial and post-industrial environments, recently collaborating with SOS Orinoco on a documentary about mining in South America. Working across analogue and digital processes, Liz blends research, documentation, and self-portraiture to reveal the human and ecological imprints of extraction. Her work reimagines photography as both witness and act of reclamation. Her images are all staged on location in camera and do not include the use of AI. ⚒️

To discover which of Liz’s works Hank Willis Thomas selected for Issue 18: Tomorrow is Today, pre-order your copy of the magazine now! Be among the first to hold Issue 18 in your hands after its release on November 8. Early bird price €16 (regular €19) applies automatically. 📦✨

#DerGreif18 #TomorrowIsToday #HankWillisThomas #PreOrder #Photography #ArtPhotography #VisualStorytelling #ContemporaryPhotography #EnvironmentalArt by @miller.kovacs

295

18

a year ago

I am thrilled to share that my long-term photography project, Supernatural has been Shortlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize 2025.

I’m deeply honoured to be a finalist alongside such an incredible lineup of international artists. The @aestheticamag prize is a major platform that showcases different genres of contemporary art on a global scale. Thank you to the jury and Aesthetica team!

My work will be installed as part of the Aesthetica Art Prize Exhibition at York Art Gallery in the UK from 19 September 2025 to 25 January 2026. More updates soon!

‘Monte Kali Apparition’ was shot on location in the shadows of the 530-meter high K+S Minerals GmbH tailings mountain. Heringen, Germany 2022. With technical assistance by @stefanieloveday + costume @hifalute_toujours
•
•
•
#aestheticaartprize #contemporaryart #contemporaryphotography #femalephotographer by @miller.kovacs

249

54

a year ago

Sector IV of a kaolin mine near Vetovo, 🪐northeast Bulgaria, where extraction of quartz-kaolin sand has shaped the local economy for decades. The pit supplied raw material for ceramics and glass until mining was paused a few years ago. Water has since collected in its lowest part, where fish are now breeding. Thanks to the team for allowing me access. Photographed with #gfx100ii
Limited edition prints available 🔜 taken in Bulgaria by @miller.kovacs

61

2

5 days ago

Standpipe Madonna, 2026
*this photo was not made with AI*
I photographed myself, draped, on a ridge above a gold pit outside Kalgoorlie, just after sunrise. The exposed face descends in bands: laterite, kaolinite, and fresh rock. The water is hypersaline and takes its pale blue from the pit’s white clay floor. More than 11,000 abandoned mines are recorded in Western Australia, and the data is incomplete.
•
Assistance on location: @mellenburns
Location Scout: @timboneesono
Costume tailoring: @alamode.schneiderei taken in Goldfields by @miller.kovacs

181

21

2 months ago

Gruve 7, Svalbard. 78° north, inside the mountain.
In 2024 I was an artist in residence at the Spitsbergen Artists Center. I was granted access to the last operating Norwegian coal mine in the Arctic, in its final period of operation. ⛏️ Coal is the reason Longyearbyen was founded, and for over a century it shaped the town.
The mine closed in 2025. The town’s economy is now shifting toward tourism and research.
Swipe to view the Port of Longyearbyen ⛴️ taken in Port of Longyearbyen by @miller.kovacs

78

7

2 months ago

This is not AI ! This photo is 100% shot in camera :
‘Fortuna of Ash.’ 2026
I climbed a mound above the soda ash tailings ponds and stood wrapped in fabric while the basin steamed behind me. I have been exploring extraction sites for years, and this one really stunned me.
Soda ash has been produced in the Tuzla region of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1893. The Solvay process, which turns salt, limestone, and ammonia into the sodium carbonate that goes into glass and detergent, leaves behind a highly alkaline slurry of lime and salts. It settles in pale terraces, leaches into the groundwater, and lifts off the dried crusts as dust. The air here is among the worst in Europe.
Costume Tailoring 🧵 @alamode.schneiderei
Assistant @malaesthetique by @miller.kovacs

340

34

2 months ago

Some photos from Lithium Dreams, Salar de Atacama, Chile, shot in late 2024. I hope to return to the lithium triangle in the near future to reconnect with the people I met there and look closer at how this industry reshapes communities and the environment over time.

The colours of the evaporation ponds — blue to green to yellow — mark rising lithium concentrations.
The same chemistry that draws tourists here powers the batteries in our pockets.
*The last 2 photographs were taken during my stay in the miner’s camp.

This is part of my ongoing, long-term project on the scope and global scale of extraction industries. taken in Desierto Atacama by @miller.kovacs

88

2

2 months ago

Last month I spent a few rainy days exploring the quarries of northern England. I shot some self-portraits bound in sheer fabric (nipples re-touched for IG) for Supernatural overlooking Middle Peak Quarry, a historic limestone quarry in Derbyshire. From the 1790s until 1992, it supplied limestone to the Midlands’ steel industry. The disused quarry is now rich with flora and fauna, with nature reclaiming the landscape. The District Council has slated the site for 150 housing units and mixed-use development.
Assistance on location @malaesthetique
Costume @hifalute_toujours taken in UK by @miller.kovacs

103

12

3 months ago

Photo drop from Bosnia earlier this month — soda ash and coal around Tuzla, bauxite tailings to the north near the Serbian border. The extraction reshapes the land and colors the water, and life exists side by side with the industry. Bosnia has environmental laws on paper, but like a lot of places, enforces them loosely…..Thanks to my to Bosnian photographer friends for the informative tips! taken in Bosnia and Herzegovinia by @miller.kovacs

107

17

3 months ago

I photographed ‘Menzies Madonna’ at the Lady Harriet Gold Mine, in the Northern Goldfields of Western Australia — a region shaped by gold mining since the late nineteenth century. The open pit, now on care and maintenance, is partially flooded, its vivid colours produced by minerals in the water and soil. Geologists are sampling here in preparation for renewed extraction.
Costume by @alamode.schneiderei taken in Goldfields by @miller.kovacs

140

5

4 months ago

A few more photos from the Western Australian Goldfields, where life and economy have revolved around extraction for over a century — gold, nickel, cobalt and rare earth minerals taken from Wongatha Country. Lucky Country is an ongoing documentary project exploring the landscapes and communities shaped by that history.

Thanks to @goldfieldsartscentre for the amazing opportunity. taken in Goldfields by @miller.kovacs

98

10

4 months ago