(NB – this video includes strobing footage)
Emerging from the Dengie Peninsula, Bradwell and the Blackwater Estuary’s unruly entanglements are planetary: tides ebb and flow; each winter dark-bellied brent geese migrate to the sucking mud of Essex shores; the Chapel of St. Peter-on-the-Wall sits atop the remains of a half-submerged Roman fort; in nearby Maldon, the well-known ‘Maldon Salt’ is panned and processed; the Estuary’s involvement in the nuclear military-industrial complex scours against the ‘back to the land’ legacies of East End socialism and the whir of the Othona communities wind turbine. This video essay produced for the Sonic Urbanism 2021 colloquium, asks how humans and non-humans, historical sites and important ecologies should be considered, particularly through planning and implementation of the infrastructure of nuclear power production, decommissioning and waste storage.
Credits
Sections of the text have been co-written with curator, Warren Harper.
The digital render of Bradwell A’s clad reactors was produced by Chris Timms.
