Nuclear Imaginaries
 
 
 

Here are some opinions and points of view from our mail arts contributors

 
Andrew Ekins
 
Ritual and exchange in human behaviour, the insistence of memory, and the compelling fetishistic processes of making are abiding facets of my painting. I am interested in making work which achieves the lustre of human presence, the mark we make, our potent imprint. Materials are chosen for their identity, their physical presence, and their metaphorical potential. Repetition , layering, impregnation of materials regenerates items that have been discarded as waste, soiled, used, until the materials become the work and the work becomes more than itself, something new. Paintings formed over time and bearing the marks of time in their appearance. The delivery and reception of this work is significant: for example enclosing a painting behind glass within a museum style cabinet so that it captures, like forensic evidence of its viewing, fingerprints grease, breathmarks. Equally a painting consisting of phosphorescent media which has one life in daylight and an afterlife when the lights are out. A painting as an event, as an encounter.
 
Eric Fong
 
My practice uses video, sculpture, photography and live art to explore medical and cultural issues. My earlier works dealt with specific biomedical questions relating to genetic engineering, oncology, prosthetic technology, and the phantom limb phenomenon, while my recent works have developed from social engagement with people of diverse ages and cultural backgrounds to examine issues concerning ageing, dementia, respiratory health, and traditional Chinese medicine.
 
Valerie Grove
 

Reconstruction

The title refers primarily to Japan reconstructing itself after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It also refers to the process of using my own photographs to try and reconstruct my experience of Japan several years after I had left.
 
Ritsuko Hidaka
 

"Gatalogue Shopping"(working title)

This work consists of a selection of pages from English languages catalogues of various shops selling furniture and household goods. All the goods are named after a town or city in Japan and the design of the good have a hint of oriental taste but not necessarily an appropriate association with the named city. For example, a series of furniture from John Lewis called "Osaka" which have a simple square shape "crafted from leather in black (description from the catalogue)". Other examples are also "Akita" sofas, "Kyoto" mirrors and "Mito" bathroom suites. These titles are the result of the designers or the furniture companies, having to come up with some inspiring names for their products. They have to think about a name that is suitable for these objects of desire that are going to be displayed in their customers' house.

I am interested in how these names, simply as words, signify a feeling or image ie. romantic, enigmatic or exotic, for the westen consumers. You would never give the name "Osaka" to an elegant coffee table costing 495 pounds if it were sold in Japan. The name "Osaka" would indicate descriptions relating to heavy industry, comedy, greed and business which is my perception as a native of that city! You cannot find any objects of desire named after Hiroshima. The city is very cosmopolitan and beautiful and the residents of Hiroshima are proud of their city. I would think if the Atomic Bomb weren't dropped there 60 years ago, there might have been plenty of consumer items named after this city.

The work includes a map of Japan showing the location of the towns and cities that feature as the names of the products in the catalogues. Additionally Hiroshima would be indicated on the same map.

 
Pil and Galia Kollectiv
 
Inspired by the two war paintings of the surrealist painter Max Ernst, Europe After the Rain I and II. Looking at imaginary landscapes of fossilised ruins that turn into organic matter fusing the textures of rotting vegetation and the angular shapes of forgotten archaeological sites, we decided to try to create a series of abstract landscapes. We collected WW2 images of American bombers over the Japanese mainland, of fighter jets explode in the dark sky over the ocean and of the blinding mushroom that hung above Hiroshima, and searched these materials - bombed Japanese factories, B52s and the scorched ground of Hiroshima - for evocative patterns. Our aims was to find a way to make these materials into something that might suggest regeneration and not just destruction, to find life in the ruins.
 
Joan Rzadkiewicz
 

Beyond Exile 2004, Digital montage photograph laminated onto a wooden support

The figure in this print is seen emerging, with senses stripped and oversaturated, into the bright light of day. This dressmaker's dummy is a casualty of its environment - it can't discuss its experience with the flowers of the field. These flowers know nothing about the inhumanity of humans. They are ravishingly indifferent to human hopes and fears and completely oblivious to art.

It is a major detail from a large two-panel work called Exile, completed in April 2003 during an artist residency at the Sagamie Centre for the Digital Arts in Alma, Quebec. The organizing theme of this exhibition informs this piece with a special perspective.
 
Hisham Zrake (Zreiq)
 
My art is a private perspective on life, private pains and disappointments, society, Death and a philosophical look at life. Death is the source for creation and the motor of life. Crucifixion a symbol for pain, pain caused by social, political and religious systems.