artist’s talk and reception: Tuesday October 14, 2008, 5:30 – 7:00pm.

"Nuclear Family" by Sarah Wagner. On exhibition: October 14 – November 26, 2008. Part of the John and Diane Marek Visiting Artist Lecture Series.

One of ..."Three exhibitions by artists who turn simple base material into works of innate value. Through their ability to elicit contemplative beauty and thought, each of these artists re-situate the visual arts as a catalyst for the alchemic creation of hope and resolve."

Nuclear Family Statement by Sarah Wagner

"They were only shadowy figures to my unaided eye, like wave functions of large deer-like creatures that had not yet collapsed into a specific species." p.111 Wormwood Forest

In the wee hours of morning of April 26, 1986, before radiation began leaking across European borders, the world and the residents of Pripyat, Ukraine could not have forecast the devastation that was to come. Pripyat was an idyllic industrialized town and of all things, a Ferris wheel was scheduled to open the day after the meltdown of reactor #4.

The horrors of radiation that were wrought on the region's humanity have been well documented. Although there were 56 deaths directly attributed to the meltdown it has been estimated that 4,000 people died of cancer due to the radiation and even more who suffer deformities or other consequences to this day.

Yet twenty some years later, even fewer could have forecast that the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone would turn into a refuge for flora and fauna. It seems that when one removes humans, nature cures itself, adapts and prospers in ways unimaginable.

I find myself within an ongoing quest for what hope can be found within the dire ecological havoc humans and "technological progress" have wreaked on our planet. That said, I continue to choose my materials in support of a "cradle to cradle" manner in hopes of making less of an impact with my studio practice while continuing to render the dualities of strength and vulnerability, of adaptation to unnatural circumstances that is and has become much, if not all, of life.

Having shadowed and made great reference to ongoing research by botanists, spiritualists, and string theorists for my work, I came across Mary Mycio's Wormwood Forest as part of my research. I was struck, much as I was by mid-nineties reports of the malformed frogs in Bock's Pond Minnesota, by the thriving populations of Roe deer, among other species, within this post-industrial, post-human wildlife refuge we most commonly refer to as a disaster area.

Rightly so:
"In fact, very little is known about the radioactive animals of Chernobyl. What is known is that there are many, many more of them than before the disaster." p.101 Wormwood Forest

Info via sarahwagner.net and oneweb.utc.edu.