Nuclear Futures?
So, in the same way that nuclear pasts, presents and futures are forever intertwined, the same could also be said of Nuclear Information Centre future projects.
Information last updated - Sun 15 Jun 2025
Cranes and Plutonium.
On a site tour of Hinkley Point C in May 2025, organised by the HPC Community Forum and led by members of the Hinkley Point Visitor Centre we were overwhelmed with facts, figures, numbers and statistics about the construction. One that particularly stood out was that we were told there were 140 cranes on site. Interestingly, the UK has 140 tonnes of Plutonium currently stored on the Sellafield site awaiting final disposal. This has triggered thoughts of a possible sculptural installation combing the two. What it may look like is unclear although it is highly likely it would be made of string and bentonite plutonium rings.
Test of Public Support.
Even if a suitable site is identified for a GDF, it must still pass a test of public support before construction can proceed.
Test of Public Support is conceived as a sculptural installation comprising a set of polling booths, one for each of the current GDF Community Partnerships where you are invited to cast your yes or no “vote” (but on what basis?). A “Test of Public Support” is the planned culmination of the first phase of any GDF (Geological Disposal Facility) siting process and the mechanism by which a final decision will be made as to whether or not a GDF will be built within the Community Partnership area boundaries. Assuming any or all the current Community Partnerships get to this stage, any test of public support may not happen for another 25 years or so which also means any community that exists as of now will have been potentially subject to a generational change by the time a test of public support is reached. Another thing that is unclear is what happens if no Community Partnership ever passes a test of public support and a willing community is never found. This is a question I have asked in person to representatives of Nuclear Waste Services but no clear answer was forthcoming. Another way of asking this would be “What are the alternatives if the consent-based approach fails?” Also, what are the parameters that would define consent (or support) in the first place and how are these to be decided?
Note: I actually made a trial version of this which was exhibited in Jan/Feb 2025 as part of an end of residency exhibition at The Wilson Art Gallery and Museum, Cheltenham.
For information, Nuclear Waste Services official guide on Community Guidance can be found here.
Living on the Edge (Closed circuit loop(s) of Aldermaston).
An experiment in documentation and non-documentation, consisting of a single but continuous walk around the edge of the AWE Aldermaston site, staying as close to the perimeter fence as possible without officially trespassing: on the outside looking in. The concept would be for the walk to be deliberately unanounced and undocumented on my part but to see if it results in any engagement with the MOD police. Whatever happens, this would be followed up by a freedom of information (FOI) request to try and find out to what extent (if any), my presence had been documented from within the site, either via camera or the written word. This project also considers edges and barriers and the interface between public and restricted access areas. What happens when we consciously explore these spaces and why? What human and non-human interractions take place? Nuclear site perimeter fences are usually wire constructions of some kind with a certain seethroughness so to some degree we can also pass beyond the fence with our senses which simultaneously situates us both outside and inside.
Water.
Visits to Faslane (Clyde Naval Base) and Sellafield in 2022 started me thinking more broadly about the importance of water in relation to nuclear activity. Of course, water is essential to all life but in terms of the nuclear cycle it plays a major role in all areas; from uranium mining to plant cooling systems, steam generation, underwater weapons systems and spent fuel storage ponds. Interestingly, it is only at the very end of the nuclear cycle with the so-called final disposal of waste that water becomes undesirable in terms of the risk it presents to the tramsmission of radio nuclides through ground water.
Nuclear Safety is our Overriding Priority.
Carve a scale version of a UK Trident nuclear warhead out of granite.
EDF displays one of these granite carved blocks in public view outside each of their UK sites. Of course, these relate specifically to the civil nuclear industry but given the UK’s civil and military activities have been historically interwoven, what if we were to apply the same message to the UK’s nuclear weapons programme(s)? We are officially informed and would very much hope Defence Nuclear Material (DNM) is being handled safely but what if we think about the safety of nuclear weapons within a broader context? Do concepts of safety become more slippery? How responsible is it to intentionally create and use such weapons of mass destruction as we have seen through the US/Allied bombings of Hiroshima and Nagaski and the subsequent decades of nuclear weapons testing? Only 9 countries globally are known to be nuclear weapons states (NWS). Are we all safer because these 9 countries have nuclear weapons? Does this make these 9 countries somehow more responsible than any other non-nuclear weapons state?Perhaps use green granite? Green Granite was the codename for the warhead/bomb design used in the UK’s Operation Grapple Pacific Island weapons tesing programme that took place in 1957-8. These were the UK’s last atmospheric weapons tests prior to the international moratorium that came into effect in October 1958. Nevertheless, the legacies of the UK’s nuclear weapons testing programmes still remain.
Elemental Writing.
Text-based laboratory experiments on an atomic level, exploring the textual, sculptural and performative possibilities of working with the periodic table of elements in a way that is strictly rules based yet with vast scope for experimentation and creativity.
Elemental Writing involves forming words, poems or text constructed entirely of chemical element symbols. These could be existing words or made up words or a combination of both which can then be arranged as you like. You can look to bring meaning to your text or you can simply just enjoy the visual nature of the written words or how it sounds when spoken or read.
Additionally, as each element has a corresponding atomic number all text will have an equivalent numeric version which can be deployed or not, like secret nuclear codes perhaps...
Elemental Writing workshop @ The Wilson Art Gallery & Museum, Cheltenham (14 Aug 2024).Soft Trident.
This is a life size (in length) “soft” version of a UK/US Trident 2 D-5 missile contructed from a single sheet of hoticultural fleece . At 13.42m long (6.62m circumference), the UK arms each of its Trident missiles with up to 5 x 100 kiloton nuclear warheads, each one represented here by a single knot. The UK currently deploys up to 8 x Trident missiles and 40 warheads at any one time as part of its submarine based “Continuous at sea (nuclear) deterrent”.
In 2016, the UK Parliament voted to renew the Trident system which also includes building 4 x new Dreadnought class nuclear submarines and the development and manufacture of new warheads in time.
Whilst the dimensions of this piece are based on hard, empirical data the softness of this version offers an alternative to the missile’s destructive power. Now rendered militarily useless and floppy it becomes more tactile than tactical. However, the 1:1 scale acts a literal device through which to draw the viewers attention to the physicality of UK’s nuclear ‘deterrent’. On the whole, Trident remains largely hidden from sight and arguably out of mind, shrouded by security and secrecy. Arguably, the immediate post Cold War politcal landscape also created the conditions for nuclear weapons to begin to fade from public consciousness, despite the fact that they have always remained in the hands of all existing nuclear weapons states. However, with the increasing geopolitical tensions of recent years, this trend has been definitively thrown into reverse. By bringing the subject of nucler weapons firmly out into the open, Soft Trident has the potential to stimulate debate and discussion on the subject and also to highlight the UK’s current position as just one of nine nuclear weapons states globally..
A more provocative installation of this piece would be to throw it across the road in front of an apporaching nuclear warhead convoy, police ‘stinger’ operation style.
Soft Trident could be hung individually or also as a series of 8 (as per my Ghost Trident). A hanging system would need to be devised. Possibly involving some sort of noose system as if to imagine the public execution of Trident having been judged guilty of potential state-sanctioned mass destruction.
The Toxic Archive.
The Toxic Archive is a potential NIC exhibit exploring speculative entanglements between radioactive waste and museum collections. Fusing fact and fiction, the archive time travels back and forth, creating part engineered, part haphazard encounters with real and imagined objects whilst simultaneously raising questions around curatorial selectiveness and cultural heritage.
What is a GDF? or perhaps an alternative title: At One with the Waste.
A physical archive of human generated nuclear activities?
A burial chamber but one in which radioactive waste is buried “alive”?
An future archaeological site but one we hope no one will ever unearth?
A radioactive mycelium? (a series of tunnels and vaults spreading out underground interspersed with containers of radioactive material that may disperse their radionuclides back up to the surface in time). The best possible solution for our radioactive waste problem?
Technical questions.
Where is the excavated rock stored during the “construction” process?
What then happens to it?
Does it become a commodity or is the intention to re-introduce it back into the host rock at the end? How much and what type of bentonite will be required as buffer material? How much copper and steel will be required to package the waste before internment? Where will these materials be sourced from?
The siting process. We are officially told geological disposal is the internationally agreed, best possible solution to the radioactive waste “problem”. The UK Government is now seeking to implement a GDF through Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), a subsidiary of the government owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
To what extent is the GDF siting process truly based on volunteerism and consent?
How is the process initiated?
What is a community?
What are the parameters of the ultimate test of public suppport that will define consent? Can consent be passed from one generation to another? The current GDF process is now 7 years in and only 4 community partnerships have formed in that time with 2 dropping out for different reasons. Will there be any more? Also what happens if a suitable site and willing community is not found?
Back