direction jour (w/n0a)




Direction Jour is an ongoing research project with N0A, studying nuclear burial sites and the principles of burial and storage.  

The logistics of waste and surplus materials have always been an economic and political issue. Whether it's burying a body or paying to export a tonne of plastic we don't know what to do with to the other side of the world, we're constantly deploying techniques, infrastructures, logistics chains and illegal activities to organise matter, try to contain it and make it disappear from the field of the visible, thereby freeing up and cleaning up space. And yet, sometimes matter resists: when an oil tanker capsizes off the coast of Brittany, when lead runs through the taps, when a wind from the Sahara deposits sand laden with caesium on the plains of the Rhine. Against a backdrop of danger, the failure of a technical system that buries and hides toxicity as it produces it is revealed, revealing the difficulty it has in maintaining order, protecting us and keeping us away from the chaos and insecurity it helps to produce.

This project is about two things: research into the techniques and philosophical issues involved in the deep disposal of nuclear waste, and the production of large ceramic containers made from the clay soils of the sites chosen to house the radioactive waste. 

Inspired by the containers developed to hold the waste, these porous amphorae act like totems catalysing the data that sweeps through the research. As they ooze, they confront us with our preconceptions about the very possibility of containment.

The project is supported by the ENOWE-ARTAGON grant, and the documents were presented at a conference at ENSAV with Niveau Zero Atelier.