ash tower

Countless Afterlives examines the material history of atomic technology and its relationships with funerary architecture. Glass, lead, and radiation have played a vital part in the advancement of atomic technologies in Australia and globally, including nuclear weapons testing. These materials also have a long history in relation to their use in funerary architecture and rituals of death, from European antiquity to settler-colonial Australia. Initially shown as part of ACE’s Studios 2022 exhibition, these objects draw parallel narratives within Australia’s legacy of nuclear weapons testing and a global nuclear anxiety, combined with contemporary drone viewfinders, and rendered in lead (a material with long-standing associations to both radiation protection and funerary ritual).