Territorial Commons: Uranium

Seminar (Spring 2024)
Territorial Commons:
Mapping Narratives in the Shifting Extractive Landscapes of the Antipodes

Teammate
August Sklar︎︎︎

Professor
Rosalea Monacella, PhD
Design Critic in Landscape Architecture,
Harvard University Graduate School of Design

Exhibitions
Slated to be included in an exhibition on extractive landscapes at:
National Museum in Australia & Harvard Natural History Museum

Project OverviewThe legacy of uranium extraction is a history of colonization and contamination. Once uranium ore’s potential to create nuclear energy was discovered, the largest powers of the world plundered for more power. Through uranium mining, we begin to unveil one facet of how the settler colony of Austrlia was able to establish itself on “unknown land” (terra nullius). Uranium was extracted with no regard for life and no regard for the preservation of this resource and its surroundings. In addition to extraction, the legacy of uranium also lived within the atomic bomb testings that were denated across Australia. The nuclear bombs of Emu Field and Maralinga were known to pollute their surroundings with “Black Mist”, which was radioactive poison carried by the wind, which spread skin disease, blindness and death to the adjacent communities. Mapping the history of uranium in Australia illunimates the reality of a government that has inflicted coercion and cruelty onto a people, for the acquisition of more power.