Burning Away

Burning Away is a unique chemigram series which utilizes honey and various oils on a sun-fused silver gelatin paper. The materials used to form this imagery is rooted in my generational trauma of the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima, which claimed many lives including my grandfather. The moment the bomb exploded in the sky of Hiroshima, it created a giant fire-ball reaching the surface temperature of 7,700 degrees matching the temperature of the Sun itself. The heat wave vaporized the people near ground zero and left devastating burns on those left alive. I found many stories of survivors treating the burns with honey, cooking oil and even motor oil due to the scarcity of even the most basic medicine. The pattern of the print depends on the type of oil used on the paper, creating various microscopic like images that may remind one of cancer cells. Although rooted in my own family history, the larger scope of the contexts applies to all of us today living in an always unstable world. These prints symbolize not only the memory of nuclear fire, but also both an archive and record of the disappearing voices of the survivors. By utilizing the conditions and history of WWII and the development of nuclear weapons as a lens to examine present day occurrences, I present a road map and journal to navigate our current systems to perhaps escape the never ending cycle of war and peace. “Under My Skin” is a subsection of the larger project "Burning Away”.