Bridget Kennedy

Awakening the sleeper: creating a new imaginary of nuclear futures via a performative installation practice

During this practice based PhD I will use a process based, sculptural practice to explore the correlatives between the materiality and social rituals of the nuclear industrial site at Sellafield, Cumbria, the surrounding landscape and its associated cultural heritage with the aim of creating a visual language that will provide alternative modes of expression for nuclear future scenarios.

High level nuclear waste decay rates are outwith the human timescale. Therefore, it is difficult for us to engage with issues such as the impact on the environment and the implications for future societies that the long term storage of nuclear waste brings. UK governmental policy favours the use of deep geological repositories for the disposal of nuclear waste, however, as yet, no site has been confirmed. I propose the use of a performative sculptural practice as a means of developing a new method of engaging with potential nuclear waste storage sites and the notion of radiological deep time. The proximity of Sellafield to Grey Croft stone circle is a context rich in potential for the creation of new social rituals for the nuclear future. I will consider the sense of mutability this landscape manifests by examining the co-existence of multiple timescales within this context and how this sense of material flux can be expressed through sculptural processes.

Supervisors

• Ele Carpenter
• Alison Craighead

Website

• axisweb.org/p/bridgetkennedy