Description:
This book traces the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011 and how art emerged as a powerful response to the socio-political and environmental consequences. Artists turned to collaborative and ecological practices to make sense of the crisis, challenging official narratives and responding to the violence of radioactive contamination.
Review Quotes:
'Nuclear Ecologies is a highly original study of how different collaborative artistic practices have addressed the Fukushima reactor meltdown to raise public awareness. In presenting this compelling model, Theresa Deichert argues that the current era of planetary precarity requires an ecological approach to the study of art in a de-centered network connecting humans, nonhumans, and the material environment.'
Claire Farago, Professor Emerita at the University of Colorado Boulder, United States, and author of Writing Borderless Histories of Art: Human Exceptionalism and the Climate Crisis
'Deichert lucidly analyzes how more-than-human collaboration and complex transculturation affectively constitute artistic responses to the 2011 triple disaster in Japan. From serving radioactive soup to exhibiting in the nuclear exclusion zone and connecting irradiated trees across Hiroshima and Fukushima - Nuclear Ecologies shows us less anthropocentric ways of being that are urgently needed.'
Franziska Koch, lecturer for Transcultural Studies at Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany
'Through employing an 'ecological' art historical research methodology decentering human agency, Deichert takes a fresh look at socio-politically engaged Japanese art. In five rich chapters, she adroitly contextualizes contemporary works of art within their social and cultural context, making a convincing case for a critical ecological engagement with art today.'
Hans-Martin Krämer, Professor of Japanese Studies and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Heidelberg University, Germany