Did you know about the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History? Click here to learn more.
Here is a video playlist with documentaries, interviews, and other media I have curated over the years. Click the upper-right-hand icon to view a drop-down menu of over 100 videos that allow you to delve deeper into the history of the Atomic Age.
Important contemporary art exhibitions that have featured nuclear energy:
- “Don’t Follow the Wind” (2015) at the Fukushima City Art Museum in Japan. This exhibition featured work by Ai Weiwei, Taryn Simon, Miyanaga Aiko, and Takekawa Nobuaki, all of whom addressed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in their work.
- “Hot Spots: Radioactivity and the Landscape” (2016) at the Krannert Art Museum in Illinois. This exhibition showcased the work of various artists and collectives that examined the long-term environmental impact of nuclear energy.
- “Art and Activism in the Nuclear Age” (2017) at the Tin Sheds Gallery in Sydney, Australia. This exhibition drew on a deep history of artistic expression to bring attention to the continued threat of nuclear war and the impacts of nuclear testing.
- “The Scholar Stones Project” (2020) at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. This exhibition featured work by Yelena Popova, who created paintings using soil from nuclear sites around the world.
These are just a few examples of the many art exhibitions on nuclear technology. Artists have used their work to explore a wide range of issues related to nuclear energy, including the threat of nuclear war, the environmental impacts of nuclear power, and the ethical implications of nuclear technology.
Archives about abstract and conceptual art and artists that inform my practice:
- MoMA: Inventing Abstraction
- Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint documentary
- Was Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ actually created by a long-forgotten pioneering feminist?
- The Latino Presence in American Art
- Painters Painting: The New York Art Scene 1940-1970
- Downtown 81: A Film by Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Puerto Rican Art: Identity, Alterity. and Travestism, a text by art historian Haydée Venegas
- Contemporary Abstraction in Latin America, by art historian Cecilia Fajardo-Gil
Bibliographical References on Nuclear Technology and Activism
Baron, J., & Herzog, S. (2020). Public opinion on nuclear energy and nuclear weapons: The attitudinal nexus in the United States. Energy Research & Social Science, 68, 101567. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101567
Culley, M. R., & Angelique, H. (2010). Nuclear Power: Renaissance or Relapse? Global Climate Change and Long-Term Three Mile Island Activists’ Narratives. American Journal of Community Psychology, 45, 231–246. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9299-8
De Groot, J. I. M., & Steg, L. (2010). Morality and nuclear energy: Perceptions of risks and benefits, personal norms, and willingness to take action related to nuclear energy. Risk Analysis, 30(8), 1363-1373. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2010.01419.x
Fremeth, A. R., Holburn, G. L. F., & Piazza, A. (2022). Activist protest spillovers into the regulatory domain: Theory and evidence from the U.S. nuclear power generation industry. Organization Science, 33(3), 1163–1187. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2021.1473
Hill, K. [@kylehill1]. (2011-present). Kyle Hill [YouTube channel]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@kylehill/
Jenkins, K. E. H., et al. (2021). The methodologies, geographies, and technologies of energy justice: a systematic and comprehensive review. Environmental Research Letters, 16(4), 043009. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abd78c
Kalmbach, K. (2017). Revisiting the nuclear age: State of the art research in nuclear history. Neue Politische Literatur, 2017(1), 49-70. https://doi.org/10.3726/4926NPL-2017-1_49
Kinsella, W. J. (2015). Rearticulating nuclear power: Energy activism and contested common sense. Environmental Communication, 9(3), 346-366. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2014.978348
Koopmans, R., & Duyvendak, J. W. (1995). The political construction of the nuclear energy issue and its impact on the mobilization of anti-nuclear movements in Western Europe. Social Problems, 42(2), 235–251. https://doi.org/10.2307/3096903
Lynch, L. (2012). “We Don’t Wanna Be Radiated”: Documentary film and the evolving rhetoric of nuclear energy activism. American Literature, 84(2), 327-351. https://doi.org/10.1215/00029831-1587368
Rifas, L. (2007). Cartooning and nuclear power: From industry advertising to activist uprising and beyond. PS: Political Science & Politics, 40(2), 255-260. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096507070394
Rothman, S., & Lichter, S. R. (1987). Elite Ideology and Risk Perception in Nuclear Energy Policy. American Political Science Review, 81(2), 383-404. https://doi.org/10.2307/1961958
Ángel Rafael Vázquez-Concepción 