How Photography Helped Build the Atomic Bomb

Analysis of Art

An interdisciplinary group of artists, collectively known as Slow War Against the Nuclear State, explores the afterlife of nuclear politics in a haunting, timely exhibition.

CLAREMONT, Calif. – The women’s collective “Slow War Against the Nuclear State” – better known as SWANS – was founded in a moment of serendipity and epiphany. In 2022, a female musician based in Los Angeles, Nancy Buchanan, decided to hold a dinner party to discuss the politics of a nuclear country, and the group has not stopped meeting since then. Three SWANS members grew up with fathers who were deeply involved in the production of atomic weapons, while two had parents who were anti-war and anti-nuclear. All seven are artists and academics, collectively spanning three generations. At Pitzer College Art Galleries, Atomic Dragons includes contributions from each member, focusing on the role of photography in the development of nuclear weapons and the human cost of nuclear disasters.

The show draws its vitality from the collective ability to adapt to a hydra with many themes of nuclear politics, including spectacle, memory, and survival. Experimental photography maintains a strong presence throughout the exhibition, paying particular attention to how photography and industry (namely, Eastman Kodak) are involved in the United States government’s test and production of the first atomic bomb by creating special cameras capable of capturing the instant of the explosion. Elin o’Hara slavick’s “Hiroshima Flowers” and “Lingering Radiation” (both 2008) present the realities of a nuclear disaster in cyanotype and autoradiograph (silver gelatin contact print of x-ray exposed paper), respectively. His haunting, prophetic views are captured not in the time of the impact or the nuclear disaster, but in the persistence of the toxic effects of these works more than 60 years later.

Elsewhere, SWANS members assess the main conditions that can create nuclear shock – the fear-driven pace of developing nuclear technology, the consequences for scientists and other supporters, and the desire for nuclear technology in world politics. Sheila Pinkel’s “Nuclear Questions” (1985) details what is at stake in the nuclear world: “Are we afraid of each other? Is fear our extreme national product? Can we make the world safe enough to dream again?” Buchanan takes the ultimate nuclear specter, the mushroom cloud, and uses it as a visual metaphor for the Cold War by putting in poisoned water like Ronald Reagan, a nest of snakes, and a temptingly loaded ice cream sundae.

Atomic Dragons it ends in the second room, where the artists created storage objects in vitrines, such as O’Hara slavick’s illuminated objects collected in isolated spaces. On the back wall hangs a certificate given by the War Department to the father of SWANS member Judith Dancoff, pre-printed on the day the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima: August 6, 1945. The letter thanks him for his work, calling it “important to the development of the Atomic Bomb.”

This last horrible form reminds us of the revival of the “Department of War” by Donald Trump – and, quickly, the fact that the United States and Israel attacked Iran just three weeks while the show was going on, talking about the regime’s fear of developing a nuclear weapon. Their attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and displaced 4 million people across Iran and Lebanon, all in less than a month.

A timely exhibition is a curation process that balances the intimate with the political. This success should be directed to the artists and the curator, who provide rich contexts for today’s nuclear politics and will hold discussions during the symposium on April 4, which is the closing day of the exhibition. Atomic Dragons insists that, as the confusion of nuclear war and imperialism continues, so must the slow war against the Nuclear State – and so do dinner parties.

Atomic Dragons continues at Pitzer College Art Galleries (1050 North Mills Avenue, Claremont, California) until April 4. The exhibition was curated by Emily Butts, director of Curatorial Affairs at Pitzer College.