Tag: Fukushima

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art

No Risk to the Public

“A newspaper clipping glimpsed in a new documentary is headlined “New Mexico’s Infant Mortality Highest in U.S., Report Says.” Lois Lipman’s film explains why that rate is so high for babies, as well as for others, especially Indigenous and Hispanic inhabitants, in her gripping First We Bombed in New Mexico. Onscreen Tina Cordova, born and raised at Tularosa, only 30 miles from the Trinity Site, declares: “We are the first victims of the atomic bomb.””

The above is from Counterpunch+ behind a paywall, but the film First We Bombed in New Mexico is now released, to rave reviews, I hope it gets to the UK very soon. ’Thousands of New Mexicans – mostly Hispanic and Native American – were exposed to catastrophic levels of radioactive fallout, never warned, never acknowledged and never helped afterwards. Generations of cancers followed.‘

I’ve been working on several pieces in the series I’ve called Meltdown, this is the latest work very much in progress.

Work in progress – Core Melt, about 30cm sq. Embellished, quilted and stitched mixed textiles

I’ve been having a little fun finding names for the pieces instead of just Meltdown 1, 2, 3 &c. and I found, ‘No Risk to the Public’, mildly amusing. The International Atomic Energy ‘Authority’ – the trade body for the nuke industry – likes to claim that far more people have died from the evacuation and it’s subsequent effects at Fukushima than have been irradiated to death, almost as though this is proof that meltdowns are survivable. The fact that a mass evacuation might be necessary at all doesn’t seem to be an issue for them. No one ever needs to be evacuated from a solar or wind farm, biomass converter or a conventional fossil fuel power station. The corium – the many, many tons of melted fuel and containment structure are unlikely to be removed from the site before 2050, if then, because they are too ‘hot’ to handle, even for robots. Of course all that stuff will remain dangerous for thousands of years, there is no safe disposal at this time. 

The number of deaths and serious illnesses from radiation released and still being released at Fukushima is disputed and could be many thousands. China, Korea and other states have banned fish from Japan.

The cleanup cost is now estimated at least $200 billion, likely far higher since every estimate so far has proven low – from one incident! 

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art

Another meltdown

One day I might get around to trying to sell some of these pieces, but in the meanwhile I’m enjoying working on them. Netflix have recently released an intriguing documentary about the 1979 Three Mile Island ‘partial’ (wikipedia) meltdown in Pennsylvania, a then brand-new plant that the makers knew had ‘issues’. Needless to say no executives of the companies concerned suffered in any legal way.

The use of the word ‘partial’ by Wikipedia referring to this incident is telling, a ‘complete’ meltdown would supposedly lead to the remains of the fuel – after various explosions, widespread contamination etc. – burning down through the earth towards China (China Syndrome) although in reality when the corium (the mix of fuel and support structure) hit the water table the entire mess would likely explode repeatedly and spread devastation across a huge area. The documentary makes clear that the incident was 30 minutes away from a catastrophe similar or likely far worse than Fukushima.

Wikipedia also repeats the word ‘accident’, where ‘incident’ is appropriate thus helping to disguise the fact of the cover-up of known problems before the plant opened.

Unlike the Fukushima meltdowns there wasn’t much to see at Three Miler Island mainly because likely hydrogen explosions didn’t happen, more by luck than anything else. 

Meltdown 12, approx 35 x 35cm, mixed textiles, embellish, embroider, stitch, cut.

The hundreds of nukes operating around the world have no long-term storage for their ultra-long-term poisonous, highly radioactive waste, many of them are ancient, metal fatigued, rusting and dangerous. Some, like Diablo Canyon, California are all this and sit on earthquake fault lines. All are capable of bringing cataclysmic destruction to their regions and far beyond.

In December 2023 the California Public Utilities Commission approved a proposal to keep Diablo Canyon’s twin reactors online, overturning an earlier agreement to close the plant in 2025. I have not heard anyone say that this plant could withstand a tsunami, although a large earthquake in the region is considered to be overdue. California had 7,339 earthquakes in the past year, I don’t know how that compares to other places.

I wish I had the artistic skill to reflect the mayhem and hubris of nuclear power and all it represents.

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nuclear

Fukushima 0n-going

The 2011 disaster at Fukushima continues and shows no sign of being cleaned up within any of our lifetimes. In that year, almost inconceivably the whole of central Japan was almost rendered uninhabitable with the possible evacuation of 50 million people being seriously considered by the Japanese government.

The Netflix drama, The Days certainly captures the sense of disaster (I found it rather slow for drama but then is it entertainment?) and correctly states that no one knows why the reactors didn’t continue to meltdown, destroying half of Japan. Fukushima now pours irradiated water into the Pacific and since there are no solutions in sight that will continue, perhaps with pauses, for the foreseeable future.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the sales force for nuclear power continues to promote nukes large and small, regardless of the disasters and in denial about the carnage, death and destruction wrought by Chernobyl and Fukushima, just two incidents, neither of which can they in any way deal with.

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art

Meltdown

After a busy few days in London, several art galleries as well as street actions culminating in the gigantic – 800,000 peaceful folk – Palestine demo I’m doing some sewing, revising some old ideas. Meltdown, a series of fabric pieces, embellished, embroidered and heavily stitched, begun in 2015 as a response to the disaster at Fukushima (2011 on-going).

Meltdown pieces at the sewing machine, about 20 x 20 cm

The subtlety of colour and stitch is rather lost in these photos.

I enjoy creating something – maybe not beautiful but hopefully of interest – using the tiniest of scraps picked up from the studio floor or stuffed away in waste bags.

Most of the thread I use for larger pieces or clothes (rare now) is organic cotton which is a little heavier than ordinary cotton, but for this work rayon, made from wood pulp is perfectly good. Not a plug just that these are widely available, Marathon rayon threads are very low cost and although they can be a little weak for some work they have a pleasant lustre and strength isn’t an issue here.

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art

Fukushima

Fukushima is in the news again, as it will be periodically for the rest of your life and beyond. This time it’s for starting to dump toxic water into the Pacific, with partial blessing of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who are trying to hedge their bets, or just lying through their teeth. And a Netflix drama series about the 2011 events.

Anyway I thought I might re-post the piece I made for my Masters degree.

Welcome to Fukushima – kimono front, fabric, printed and embellished, 2m x 2m, 2018.
Welcome to Fukushima – kimono rear, printed and embellished fabric, 2m x 2m, 2018

I have managed to lose most of the files, sketches, notes, images &c. I collected for the project and for the rest of the MA, probably when I moved home, twice.

My overall feeling about this piece is that I would like it to be darker and with bigger and bolder images, but at the time of making I was thinking of the confusion surrounding the 2011 events, and a recent visit to the COBRA museum, Amsterdam https://cobra-museum.nl/ where the anti-art movement of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam (post World War Two) is displayed.

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textiles

Meltdown

I am having a clear up and out, and I came across these small pieces from a few years back when I was pursuing an MA in Multidisciplinary Printmaking at Bower Ashton in Bristol. I made them with the Fukushima fiasco in mind, knowing that would be a topical issue all my remaining life and beyond. Fukushima is in the news again as the authorities want to release a million tons of radioactive water into the sea, Uproar Over Japan’s Decision to Disperse Radioactive Fukushima Waste Water and the situation at the site remains dire. I made about ten, gave some away.

I’m thinking of re-framing them perhaps as a single piece, but undecided about the type of frame, a black painted board? These scanned images are fuzzy, the originals have a lot more detail.

Meltdown, 1,2,3,4, approx A4, mixed textiles and embroidery

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art

抗議の行進 Kōgi no kōshin Demo

Just finished re-mounting this piece, which is for sale, £380.

抗議の行進
Demo
Mixed Textiles & Steel, 108 x 43 cm, 2018

Categories
textiles

Welcome to Fukushima

This was my final piece for the MA Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking an it is currently half on display at the Royal West of England gallery as part of their annual open exhibition.  I say half because although I submitted it as a sculpture and wanted it shown in the whole it has been placed against a black curtain.  Still we do what we can and endure what we must.

Welcome to Fukushima – kimono rear mixed printed and embellished fabric, 2m x 2m, 2018
Welcome to Fukushima – kimono front, mixed fabric printed and embellished, 2m x 2m, 2018.

The work references Japanese Boro coats, hand-me-downs that were patched repeatedly and passed on to succeeding generations.  In the later half of the 20thC they became collectable and examples can be found in museums and galleries, such as Sri, prices on application!  Interestingly the V & A gallery in London has a, ‘Make your own: Japanese ‘Boro’ bag‘ .pdf instruction.

There are many examples of Boro on pinterest, and some excellent information courtesy of Heddels.