Welcome to A People's Atlas of Nuclear Colorado
To experience the full richness of the Atlas, please view on desktop.
Navigating the Atlas
You may browse the Atlas by following the curated "paths" of information and interpretation provided by the editors. These paths roughly track the movement of radioactive materials from the earth, into weapons or energy sources, and then into unmanageable waste—along with the environmental, social, technical, and ethical ramifications of these processes. In addition to the stages of the production process, you may view in sequence the positivist, technocratic version of this story, or the often hidden or repressed shadow side to the industrial processing of nuclear materials.
Using the buttons on the left, you may also browse the Atlas's artworks and scholarly essays, access geolocated material on a map, and learn more about contributors to the project.
If you would like to contribute materials to the Atlas, please reach out to the editors: Sarah Kanouse (s.kanouse at northeastern.edu) and Shiloh Krupar (srk34 at georgetown.edu).
Cover Image by Shanna Merola, "An Invisible Yet Highly Energetic Form of Light," from Nuclear Winter.
Atlas design by Byse.
Funded by grants from Georgetown University and Northeastern University. Initial release September 2021.
Using the buttons on the left, you may also browse the Atlas's artworks and scholarly essays, access geolocated material on a map, and learn more about contributors to the project.
If you would like to contribute materials to the Atlas, please reach out to the editors: Sarah Kanouse (s.kanouse at northeastern.edu) and Shiloh Krupar (srk34 at georgetown.edu).
Cover Image by Shanna Merola, "An Invisible Yet Highly Energetic Form of Light," from Nuclear Winter.
Atlas design by Byse.
Funded by grants from Georgetown University and Northeastern University. Initial release September 2021.
Claudia X. Valdes, For the Future, With Love (installation view), 2015, courtesy the artist
Artwork
For the Future, With Love
For the Future, With Love is modeled on the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) 1992 report “Marking the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for 10,000 Years," which attempts to answer: how do we communicate with and warn future civilizations about the hazardous contents held inside our nuclear waste storage sites?
It is excruciatingly painful to contemplate the abysses of human achievement, when we know we were born to something far more sanctified. Divine Mother, we have built pyramids, created masterpieces in art, invented vaccines, performed surgery on the human heart, and engineered space ships to take us to the moon and back. But the nuclear achievement is beyond the beyond…splitting the atom and harnessing that energy for Armageddon, creating a radioactive waste byproduct that will last ten to twenty thousand years? Oppenheimer is Shiva indeed. All of planetary life lives in the nuclear prison-like shadow until time’s end. Illuminate the shadow however we might, we will never escape its darkness, unless a miracle, akin to the miracle of life itself, arrives to free us.
It is excruciatingly painful to contemplate the abysses of human achievement, when we know we were born to something far more sanctified. Divine Mother, we have built pyramids, created masterpieces in art, invented vaccines, performed surgery on the human heart, and engineered space ships to take us to the moon and back. But the nuclear achievement is beyond the beyond…splitting the atom and harnessing that energy for Armageddon, creating a radioactive waste byproduct that will last ten to twenty thousand years? Oppenheimer is Shiva indeed. All of planetary life lives in the nuclear prison-like shadow until time’s end. Illuminate the shadow however we might, we will never escape its darkness, unless a miracle, akin to the miracle of life itself, arrives to free us.
The double-sided flag of For the Future, With Love, weaves symbolism of radiation, warning colors, the United States of America national flag, and the silhouetted landscape of White Sands Missile Range. The latter coincidentally echoes Michael Brill’s "Spike Field" design from the WIPP DOE report.
Claudia X. Valdes, For the Future, With Love (back), 2015, courtesy the artist
Citation
Claudia X. Valdes, For the Future, With Love, double-sided flag, 3 x 5 feet, 2015.
Continue on "Legacies"