Docs & Talks: The Anthropocene / Radioactive Ruins

Talk & debate / English / 90 min.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not too many decades ago the image of the mushroom cloud was every child’s deepest fear and worst nightmare: the symbol of the end of the world – with the end of the Cold War this representation took other forms.

In this special event we will be looking back at the Atomic Age to examine how you can, in more than one way, draw parallels to the times we now live in. Many scientists/researchers consider the nuclear weapons tests in the 1950’s as the beginning of what is today referred to as the age of the Anthropocene. These tests weren’t just a game changer for the security politics and the technological development, they also changed the intellectual life: Nuclear weapons fundamentally altered the way we think about and understand the environment, nature and the planet we live on.

Researchers from DIIS Rens Van Munster, Lis Kayser and Magdalena Stawkowski have all recently returned from doing fieldwork at the ‘ground zero’s’ of the Nuclear Age: The Marshall Islands, French Polynesia and Kazakhstan, where nuclear powers USA, France and the Soviet Union carried out their nuclear tests.

They will tell us about how they work with the research project ‘Radioactive Ruins: Security in the Age of the Anthropocene’. The project examines how the local populations live with the radioactive ruins left behind by the Cold War.

We will hear about the Atomic Age from a historical, a colonial and a cultural perspective, have a look at some of the iconic images and film clips that define the period and consider how the technological developments has influenced the popular culture up until today, and finally, we will dare to throw a look into the future…

The talk is moderated by historian Casper Sylvest, University of Southern Denmark.

The talk will be in English. Tickets: 30 kr.

Buy ticket here

https://www.dfi.dk/cinemateket/biograf/events/event/det-antropocaene-radioaktive-ruiner-docs-talks