Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner was set in a nuclear dystopia in November 2019.
and here we are.
The earth is powdered with radioactive isotopes, like icing sugar on a cake. A thin yellow line registers in our teeth, our bones and in the geologic strata. Nuclear dystopia is here and it is unequally distributed.
After a recent road trip to visit Anangu lands in and around Maralinga- one of three sites of British nuclear testing in Australia – this group of artists and activists consider the nuclear present and what it means to ‘record the future that is already here’*.
*Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages
Tessa Rex, Yul Scarf, Crunch Kefford, Jessie Boyland, Alex Moulis, Andrea Steves and Gem Romuld are a group of artists and activists living in Australia, Aotearoa and USA. Their individual work confronting the nuclear industry spans audio, photography, video, installation, community radio, Nobel fucking Peace Prize-winning nuclear disarmament advocacy and working with nuclear-affected communities from New Mexico to Yalata. In August 2019 they travelled together to Maralinga, one of three nuclear test sites in Australia.
Image: Yul Scarf & Tessa Rex, 2019, Tears in the Rain, projection on silver party tassels