Exhibition: Transmutations: Visualizing Matter | Materializing Vision – Jesse Andrewartha
Transmutations: Visualizing Matter | Materializing Vision is an exhibition exploring the history, legacy and radioactivity of uranium mining during the Cold War in Canada and the United States. Captured over the course of three years in palladiotype and uranotypes.
Jesse Andrewartha travelled from the sub-Arctic regions of Canada to the uranium mines of southern Utah and the Navajo Nation to document the lives impacted by uranium; ex-miners that toiled decades underground, Indigenous leaders and activists leading the charge to clean up the mines and the places that shifted the balance of power on a global scale. Radiation cannot be perceived by our own senses.
Photography is the only medium that makes it visible. Upon placing radioactive uranium ore directly on film, the ionizing radiation exposes it as if it were visible light.
The photographs provide audiences an image of material vibrancy, their stories providing a better understanding of our connection to the power of uranium, its history and impact on this planet and its inhabitants, raising the issues of environmental degradation and renewed extraction of nuclear materials.
Each print in the exhibition is part of a limited edition on hand-made on specialized papers designed for alternative photographic processes, framed using archival matte board. The uranotype prints are safe; there is no hazard to the audience or staff from normal viewing or handling of the framed images.
Gold Street Studios & Gallery. Trentham East, Victoria. 29 January – 6 April 2025.
