Tag: nuclear

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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! 

Categories
art

Meltdown 9

Meltdown 9, mixed fabric, embellish, embroider, stitch, 30 x 30 cm

Categories
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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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.