Object Permanence

August 05 — September 08, 2018 Trish Clark Gallery.

Object Permanence interrogates the persistence of the objects and energies arising from nuclear radiation. Video accompanies intricate textiles, marrying domestic ordinariness with complex social and scientific considerations. The video works Object Permanence and The Pacific Century explore the timescales, global reach and human effects of nuclear tests and accidents in what has been described as “the Second Nuclear Age.” Tepco Bond Blankets are jacquard knitted screenshots of sharemarket valuations.  They capture, in wool and cotton, the market value of the Tokyo Electric Power Company on the anniversary of the Fukushima disaster.   Laser-cut felted works retrace the iconography of medals awarded to Chernobyl cleanup workers .  The Chernobyl Liquidators medal depicts a drop of blood transected by alpha and beta particles, and shot through with a gamma ray.  This concise piece of late-Soviet design is burnt by laser and meticuloulsy reassembled out of hand-felted merino wool and finely spun stainless steel.