Z33

Over the last 6 years, Fukushima-based artist Kota Takeuchi has made a series of intelligently informed and aesthetically embedded artworks that draw us closer to the contaminated site of the dilapidated Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant

Nuclear industry is undergoing a process of decommissioning and waste management. At the same time, a renewed interest in the ‘nuclear humanities’ is now also reaching art and curating. Curator and writer Ele Carpenter reflects on the relation of art and nuclear culture.

Perpetual Uncertainty is an exploration of contemporary art in the nuclear anthropocene. The exhibition brings together international artists from across Europe, the USA and Japan to investigate experiences of nuclear technology, radiation and the complex relationship between knowledge and deep time.

On November 17 last year, the seventh Nuclear Culture Roundtable took place at Z33, a day of debates accompanying the exhibition Perpetual Uncertainty. What exactly is nuclear culture, and what’s the origin of the Nuclear Culture Roundtable?

In the first Z33 Debate, ‘Future Thinking,’ Jan Boelen and Tobias Revell explore a series of questions related to design and future thinking. Whereas all designers design for the future, some do it more intentionally than others; for some, proposing or facilitating alternative future visions is the core of their work.

Jan Boelen, Johanna Agermann Ross of Disegno magazine and  freelance design writer and critic Tamar Shafrir discuss the role of design discourse and critique at the horizon of Milan Design Week.