Columbia Generating Station, Hanford, Washington 2014
Transuranic is a series of uranotypes, a 19th-century process that uses uranium instead of silver to form the image. Uranium is used to make nuclear bombs and fuel for nuclear power reactors. These uranotypes were created from photographs captured at every site in the Western U.S. that transports radioactive waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in NM. Upon moving to NM from Japan, where I participated in disaster relief work after the 2011 tsunami and nuclear meltdown, I set out to understand the impact of the nuclear industry on my immediate surroundings. Transuranic documents nuclear facilities, places seemingly transparent in their operations, as indicated by signage, and still resting amongst us like scars on the landscape. The red and yellow hue of the uranotype is likened to the color of the sky after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. This material presence negates these sites' unassuming and banal nature, reminding us of the reality ever-present in our place of inhabitance.
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant 1, Carlsbad, New Mexico 2014
Transuranic is a series of uranotypes, a 19th-century process that uses uranium instead of silver to form the image. Uranium is used to make nuclear bombs and fuel for nuclear power reactors. These uranotypes were created from photographs captured at every site in the Western U.S. that transports radioactive waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in NM. Upon moving to NM from Japan, where I participated in disaster relief work after the 2011 tsunami and nuclear meltdown, I set out to understand the impact of the nuclear industry on my immediate surroundings. Transuranic documents nuclear facilities, places seemingly transparent in their operations, as indicated by signage, and still resting amongst us like scars on the landscape. The red and yellow hue of the uranotype is likened to the color of the sky after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. This material presence negates these sites' unassuming and banal nature, reminding us of the reality ever-present in our place of inhabitance.
Note: The text above was written by the Artist. No modification was made by COCA.
Abbey Hepner
United States
Abbey Hepner is an artist and educator. Her artistic practice examines health, technology, and our relationship with place through photography, video, and installation-based work. She frequently works at the intersection of art and science, investigating biopolitics and the use of health as a currency. Her work has been exhibited widely in such venues as the Mt. Rokko International Photography Festival, SITE Santa Fe, the Krannert Art Museum, the University of Notre Dame, and the Lianzhou Foto Festival. Her monograph, The Light at the End of History, about nuclear issues was published by Daylight Books in 2021.