We warmly invite you to two upcoming events that are the result of a six months intense artistic-academic exchange between Anna Volkmar, PhD candidate at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS), and the artists Grit Ruhland, Agnès Villette and Elise Alloin.
Over the past five years, as part of the NWO Graduate programme Arts in Society, Anna has researched the critical role of visual art in debates on nuclear energy, radioactive waste disposal and nuclear disasters. By not only writing about art, but also engaging with the artists on one of the core questions of this debate how to communicate the danger of the radioactive waste we leave for future generations? she has realised one of the basic tenets of her dissertation: not to stay in the realm of theory, but to start muddling!
The Environmental Humanities Center presents: HOW TO CARE FOR OUR NUCLEAR HERITAGE?
4th December, 16:00-18:00
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, main building, room HG-14A33
Presentations by artists Grit Ruhland and Agnès Villette
Afterwards: EHC mid-winter reception!
Time capsules, key information files, sapphire disks, and monuments of terror. Proposals on how to communicate our nuclear heritage to future generations typically converge around ideas of either passing on as much technical information as possible, or instigating fear and repulsion to keep future humans from digging up the waste we have buried. Taking a different approach, we ask: how to care for our nuclear waste? How to make a nuclear site worth remembering? During one afternoon, the artists Grit Ruhland and Agnès Villette will present their versions of nuclear waste markers, provoking us to think about how we want to relate to our nuclear heritage both in the present and in the future.
Introduction by Anna Volkmar, PhD Candidate at Leiden University.
This event is hosted by the Environmental Humanities Center Amsterdam. It is realised with the kind support of CLUE+, the Dutch Research Council NWO and the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society LUCAS.
De Kunstgang at Leiden University presents: TOPOLOGIES OF CARE
Elise Alloin, Grit Ruhland, and Agnès Villette
3 December, 19:00 (The exhibition is on view December 2019 – January 2020)
Kunstgang, Lipsius building, Cleveringaplaats 1, Leiden
With an opening address by prof. R. Zwijnenberg
In mathematics, topology is the study of a geometric object that preserves its properties under continuous deformation. Marking sites across (deep) time, ideally, is a topological exercise. In this interactive exhibition, the artists Elise Alloin, Grit Ruhland and Agnès Villette each present their own concept for a nuclear waste marker. Experimenting with past, present and future practices of storytelling to engage with the continuous presence of nuclear waste and contaminated sites, the exhibition is not only a display but asks its viewers to contribute to the fabulation of a topology of care via analogue and digital media.
The exhibition is hosted by Kunstgang Leiden and was realised with the generous support of the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society LUCAS and the Dutch Research Council NWO.
Environmental Humanities Center Amsterdam 