Existing comment:
Trinity Cube, 2017
irradiated glass from the Fukushima Exclusion Zone and Trinitite
Trinity Cube's distressed surface suggests the dark history encoded in its materials. Paglen built it using two kinds of glass. The outer layer was collected from the Fukushima exclusion zone -- the radioactive site of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The inner core is Trinitite, also called Alamagordo glass because it was created at the Trinity test site in Alamagordo, New Mexico, in 1945, when the first atomic bomb was tested. The object displayed here is an artist's proof. The original Trinity Cube was placed back inside the Fukushima exclusion zone, along with other works in a "museum" made up of four evacuated houses. The exhibition will be viewable by the public only when the exclusion zone is deemed safe to open, at an unspecified future date. Here an object made for a future audience asks contemporary viewers to reflect on the catastrophes of recent history. |