Dear Ele and All,

Thank you for opening up discussion on so much fascinating work by so
many incredible people! This email chain is quite amazing! I am still
working my way through the contributions and look forward to more
discussions!

My name is Andrea Pinheiro, I am an artist and occasional curator
based in Sault Ste. Marie in Northern Ontario, Canada (Algoma region)
and I am a Visual Art professor at Algoma University.

I started my arts education in 2000 at a short-lived, but incredible
school called White Mountain Academy of the Arts that was in Elliot
Lake Ontario, not far from Sault Ste Marie and also in the Algoma
region, and a former uranium mining site. Prior to attending art
school I was quite preoccupied with nuclear things and was quite
terrified to live in that town, however I transmuted by fear into a
passion to research s mucha s I could about nuclear waste, weapons
testing, nuclear racism, interactions between film emulsion and
radioactivity, and nuclear semiotics. While the topic is not evident
in all of my work it did inform all of my work in my masters program
as well as many current and ongoing projects. For example I regularly
visit the uranium tailings in the Elliot Lake area and have traveled
to uranium tailings and camped at the edge of the Nevada test site,
attended the Trinity site and have performed various small gestures at
these sites, the documentation of the sites as well as the gestures
seep into my artwork in different ways. I am also currently working on
a project in which I am growing Tradescantia occidentalis, a plant
whose stamen fibers change colour in the presence of radioactivity,
and plan to travel with and plant them at the tailings dams.

One of my longer term goals is to establish a community-based research
and archive centre here in the Algoma region. The Algoma region is
close to two of the sites that Canada is currently deciding between
for its DGR, Saugeen First Nation in Bruce Peninsula and Wabigoon
Firstnation near Ignace. Both sites would require the high level
wastes to travel through the region and are close in proximity to the
Great Lakes. The Algoma region also continues to house the largest
mass of low-level nuclear waste in Canada at the Elliot Lake area. I
believe it would be beneficial to have a localized community research
and archive centre here as our university already has proven expertise
in developing community-based archives as it houses a Residential
School Archive called the Shingwauk Residential School Centre. I do
hope this centre or group could be connected with other similar groups
around the world working to document and preserve memory of the waste
in their own communities. I would love to connect with others around
this topic even though we are in the very early stages here. I would
love to develop a conference in the near future that would bring
thinkers and cultural works such as yourselves here to discuss these
sorts of plans.

I apologise, my website is not currently functional but some of my
work can be viewed here:
https://coopercolegallery.com/artist/andrea-pinheiro/

and one of my favourite, or at least most succinct nuclear-based
projects, the Bomb Book, can be seen here:
https://thepolygon.ca/exhibition/anna-oppermann-filiations-andrea-pinheiro-bomb-book-marianne-wex-lets-take-back-our-space/

https://artistsbooksandmultiples.blogspot.com/2015/01/andrea-pinheiro-bomb-book.html

I am looking forward to continuing to read more about each of your
work and do greatly look forward to connecting in the near future.

With gratitude,
Andrea Pinheiro


On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 12:30 PM Aimee Lax
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Dear All,
>
>
> It’s been fascinating to read about everyone’s work and I have questions for each of you!
>
>
> Introducing myself, I am an artist and Lecturer in Ceramics based at Bath Spa University, UK. My nuclear enquiry began with a residency at Cove Park, Scotland in 2017, where the proximity of nuclear submarines in Loch Long and the nearby storage of warheads at Coulport, led me to question the public perception of risk. I made a body of work, entitled ‘Radioactive Boglach’ a fictional field study of organisms affected by long term, low levels of radiation, focusing on plants and other quiet unseen micro/macro-organisms. I frequently question science-fiction based on fact, fake news and the apparent public acceptance of nuclear energy technologies, as a so-called ‘green’ option. I am focused as a ceramicist, who deals with oxides such as cobalt, chromium, cadmium, lithium and (historically) uranium, as earth pigments for colouring glazes and glass. As our renewable energy technologies require more and more continued mining of oxides (that are dangerous or rare) to fuel our needs, this is inextricably linked to my research and making going forward. I have safely stored in my possession, a jar of uranium oxide that awaits a safe burial project....
>
>
> In 2019 I undertook a residency at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. I joined NCRG soon after, having met with Ele Carpenter. The residency, broadly titled ‘Anthropocene’; provided a public platform to discuss nuclear findings at the museum and discuss our energy crisis. The V&A has an incredible collection of uranium glass on display, (not labelled as such). Ele and I hosted an evening at the museum where visitors could re-discover the uranium glass collection at night, using UV torches, plus we were also able to display Ele’s uranium glass collection, an artwork entitled ‘Laboratory for Variable Risk Perception’, as my role included curatorial commitments in the use of the vitrine next to the residency space. These curatorial opportunities also enabled my telling of nuclear involvement in a ‘story of energy’ through the display of ceramic objects from the museum’s collection. The final display featured my ceramic sculpture entitled ‘Dark Times’, based on reports and images of mutated pines from the CEZ at Chernobyl, from the author Kate Brown (of the book Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future) as well as clay architectural maquettes, made by school children, for the markers of burial sites for spent nuclear fuel.
>
>
> The residency space was left unattended during covid19 lock-down but I had left filming on time lapse, (eerily unseen by the public) ‘Repository’; an installation of a copper disk and bentonite clay that attempts to make some tangible sense of any proposed deep-time repository of spent nuclear fuel, in facilities such as Onkalo, Finland. This work was also installed at CAC, Vilnius for the ‘Splitting the Atom’ exhibition 2020, curated by Ele and Virginija Januskeviciute.
>
>
> I am currently commenting on a range of planning drawings I received (presumably for stakeholders) which seemingly simplify the huge engineering process that would be involved in the deep-time burial of spent nuclear fuel, as a final resting place. Communication and public engagement exercises continue to intrigue me, contacts I had at Magnox (who are now retired) gave me a booklet that highlights ‘Magnox Achievements’ as a public relations exercise, it makes for unsettling, not reassuring reading in my opinion! The nearest Magnox decommissioned reactor site to me is Berkeley on the Severn estuary, which features in the booklet.
>
>
> I am keen to connect and be involved in any new plans for exhibitions or symposiums and look forward to hearing more soon, this is so exciting.
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Aimee Lax
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
>
> www.aimelax.co.uk
>
> Instagram: aimee.lax
>
> +44 7899 743358
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> To unsubscribe from the NUCLEAR-CULTURE-RESEARCH-GROUP list, click the following link:
> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=NUCLEAR-CULTURE-RESEARCH-GROUP&A=1



-- 

Andrea Pinheiro
Associate Professor, Visual Art
Algoma University
1520 Queen St. East
Sault Ste Marie ON, P6A 2G4
Cell: 705-297-7634
https://coopercolegallery.com/artist/andrea-pinheiro/
www.180projects.org
www.algomau.ca

I am currently a guest, living and working in the traditional
territories of the Anishinaabe and Metis communities of northern
Ontario. I am honoured to be here and to teach and carry out research
on the land that Chief Shingwauk dedicated for an educational
facility, specifically for the educational benefit of Anishinaabe
people.

I wish to acknowledge that I am on the traditional lands of the
Anishinaabek Nation. I also acknowledge that I am on sacred lands set
aside for education as envisioned by Chief Shingwauk for our children
and for those as yet unborn.

########################################################################

To unsubscribe from the NUCLEAR-CULTURE-RESEARCH-GROUP list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=NUCLEAR-CULTURE-RESEARCH-GROUP&A=1

This message was issued to members of www.jiscmail.ac.uk/NUCLEAR-CULTURE-RESEARCH-GROUP, a mailing list hosted by www.jiscmail.ac.uk, terms & conditions are available at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/