The Half-Life Afterlife

Abstract. Although situated firmly in the present, The Half-Life Afterlife is a speculative, time-travelling sculptural and text-based artwork reflecting on the geological disposal of radioactive waste and the entangled nature of our human-generated atomic activities from the vantage point of an unspecified, undefined and possibly post-nuclear future. It assumes the form of a collection of ancient looking bentonite clay objects, recently discovered in the vicinity of Gloucestershire Airport which was thought to have become the site of a Geological Disposal Facility or GDF where the UK’s most hazardous and long-lived nuclear waste was eventually buried, deep underground.

Possibly created as radioactive waste burial charms or above ground protection devices, these found objects have been subject to speculative research methods, fusing nuclear fact and fiction, before being catalogued and displayed in a very human attempt to imbue them with cultural significance and meaning as future nuclear artefacts.

At the heart of this artwork is the notion that we are asked to place our trust in the science and engineered barriers of the GDF but at the same time we cannot know with any certainty how societal and cultural changes will impact on our long-term future understanding and relationship with our atomic past and the waste we have left behind.

Also, in terms of addressing our domestic waste, geological disposal is presented as both a safe and neat and tidy solution, but we should also consider this within the context of our wider global nuclear footprint and keep in mind the ongoing and enduring legacies of uranium mining, atomic weapons testing and unplanned radiological releases are not so tidily managed or contained and will continue to unfold over both human and geological timescales.