Echoes From and Beyond the Land

Full description

Background
Recent exhibitions of artworks which connect the Australian landscape with the dark side of science include "Black Mist Burnt Country" which is critical of the British - Australian atomic tests of the 1950's - 1960s. On a personal level, this project is a development upon a recent project of mine (Demon Core, 2019) inspired by a a fatal nuclear chain reaction that happened at the Los Alamos laboratory in 1946.

Contribution
This work contributes both to discussion of, and material engagement with nuclear materials. It contains traces of uranium ore and earth from Central Australia in the actual material composition. Such textural traces, both literally and conceptually, imbue the work with a dark shadow upon the land. Using a Geiger counter these traces can be detected in the work as in the country, which seeks to bring at least an echo of the work and land together. Additionally, I developed a “post-digital” process, using multiple layers and variations of backlit paper to create the composition in a way equivalent to digital imaging “photoshop” processes. Also the work was produced during stage 4 lockdown, requiring me to innovate with only materials found in my concrete yard.

Significance
The work is significant in that it is a rare example of radioactive image making. Through this the work seeks to ignite debate regarding the ongoing misuse of uranium found in Australia, and the tension between naturally occurring radioactive matter, and the (Heideggerian) enframing of this dormant power as a source of energy and potential annihilation. As Robert Oppenheimer said after the first atomic bomb test, "physicists have known sin ; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose”. Ultimately, this revisits that sin and hopefully reflect and learn, in the words of the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta women's council, "irati wanti", or leave the poison alone.