Ghosts of the Manhattan Project

After living for 20 years as a non-scientist in science communities that were created to build the atom bomb, it has become too familiar. Coming from Germany with a very different perspective on war, the propaganda, the selective memory and atomic nostalgia had fascinated me since we arrived in Los Alamos. In Oak Ridge, genteel decline is fought with historic images by Ed Westcott, the official government photographer of the Manhattan Project. Restorative nostalgia of heroes, victory and the happy, young and white “Girls of the Atomic City” prevail. Victims, dissent and incidents are rarely part of the official history. Portal 4, the only standing structure of K-25, a uranium enrichment facility, became my portal into the past. Svetlana Boym writes: “A cinematic image of nostalgia is a double exposure, or a superimposition of two images – of home and abroad, past and present, dream and everyday life.” I dug into archives and combined historical images with my explorations, using textures to hint at the uncanny decay of place and memory. The created palimpsests add a little discomfort and skepticism to the official story of ‘saving the boys.’ They remember the victims and unsolved problems but encourage discussions about the future of the atomic age.