LABORATORY FOR VARIABLE RISK PERCEPTION

Ele Carpenter (UK)

WEST WARD WORKS - PART OF THE GROUP EXHIBITION MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY: EXCAVATIONS
Guthrie Street
DD1 5BR

A stunning collection of domestic uranium glassware displayed behind glass and illuminated by ultraviolet light. The depleted uranium in the glass is a byproduct of our nuclear energy consumption and nuclear weapons production. Radioactive emissions are measured with a Geiger counter and recorded in a logbook, enabling comparisons with other sources of radiation, revealing the variance of risk perception.

About the Artist:

Ele Carpenter (UK) is a curator and writer in politicised art and social networks of making. Her curatorial practise responds to interdisciplinary socio-political contexts such as the nuclear economy and the relationship between craft and code. Her curatorial research into nuclear culture investigates the contemporary aesthetics of living in the nuclear Anthropocene through commissioning new work, field research, writing, and curating exhibitions, film screenings and roundtable discussions. The Nuclear Culture project has commissioned new work in response to the issues raised by dismantling British nuclear submarines in consultation with members of the Submarine Dismantling Project Advisory Group, and in partnership with the Arts Catalyst.

Ele is a curator of the Perpetual Uncertainty exhibition Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden (2016-7) and currently showing at Z33 House for Contemporary Arts, Hasselt, Belgium until 10 December 2017. Next year the exhibition will travel to Malmo Konstmuseum, Sweden. Ele is editor of The Nuclear Culture Source Book, Black Dog Publishing, (2016), and convenor of the Nuclear Culture Research Group at Goldsmiths.