Abbey Hepner
Saturday, October 21 - 2:00PM to 3:00PM
RM 905
This talk focuses on Abbey Hepner's decade-long examination of nuclear energy, the atomic bomb, and radioactive waste. By capturing distinct marks in time, Hepner makes visible the ongoing, often invisible, relationships with nuclear technologies. Hepner's work looks at nuclear issues globally, as well as specific communities affected by nuclear technologies. These include indigenous communities in the Southwest and her own family who were devastatingly affected as downwinders from atomic testing in the 1950s. Hepner also investigates lingering issues with radioactive waste disposal in the Midwest. The work spans processes including uranium prints, film photographs, cyanotypes, laser-engraved prints, aerial photographs, video, maps, installation-based work, and computer-assisted imagery. Her monograph, The Light at the End of History, was a collaboration with geographers Mark Finco and Scott White and art historian Kirsten Pai Buick. She will discuss their contributions and the difficulties of navigating questions of art and activism in her work.
Dialogue and critique are important to the SPE mission.
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