Babochka: the end of the first nuclear age

As 'first generation' nuclear power plants near the end of their lives, nuclear communities face new challenges. The process of nuclear decommissioning, in terms of loss of jobs at power plants, as well as the process of dealing with radioactive materials left over from power plants, means that communities reliant on nuclear power generation as a source of employment are undergoing changes.

This research builds on recent work in critical, political and cultural theory that explores the lived experience of late capitalism, drawing our attention to ways of persisting in the present. The project will engage with and generate knowledge about the specific experiences of communities near sites of nuclear decommissioning.

bebochka-butterfly

Project timeframe

The project began in 2015 and is ongoing.

Project aims

The site chosen is Visaginas, in Lithuania, a planned Soviet town built to house the workers of the Ignalina II Nuclear Power Plant (currently being decommissioned). In this project, ideas of futurelessness, dissociation, grassroots creativity and endurance are engaged with through arts-based interventions including photographic work, PLAN theatre, and storytelling as a platform for the generation of co-produced site-specific knowledge.

This will be undertaken through:

  1. Photographic project “the last nuclear age” (Jonty Tacon and Laurie Griffiths) to tour nuclear communities and metropolitan centres.
  2. Theatre project in conjunction with Lithuania National Drama Theatre.
  3. An online GPS enabled facility for identifying sites of decline and spaces of cultural production and empowerment.

Drawing on the arts-based interventions mentioned above, as well as narrative interviews and ethnographic research in Lithuania and the UK, the project will:

  • Explore the lived experience of nuclear decommissioning within communities in order to think through the specific forms of endurance, resilience, world making, and subjectivities produced through this specific context of deindustrialisation and macroeconomic change.
  • Provide a platform for making stories and experiences visible and for making communities heard through co-production of knowledge between universities, communities and creative practitioners.
  • Provide a means of sharing these experiences of living with nuclear decommissioning between different European communities.
Bebochka-landscape

Project findings and impact

Further information will be available on completion of the project.

Research team

Dr Leila Dawney

Output

To follow on completion of the project

 

Partners

Laurie Griffiths

Jonty Tacon