Nuclear Colonialism and the Art of Resistance is a one-day symposium to be held at the University of Virginia in the Harrison/Small Auditorium on November 7, 2025 from 12:30-4:30 pm. Please register to reserve your spot.

The symposium is accompanied by a Virtual Reality experience Collisions (2016), which will be available at the UVA Scholar’s Lab throughout the day on November 6 and 7 and is taking place in conjunction with the exhibition In the Beginning: Paintings by Senior Artists of the Spinifex Arts Project on view at Kluge-Ruhe.

In 1993, Indigenous rights scholars Ward Churchill and Winona LaDuke coined the term “Radioactive Colonization” to describe a Cold War order in which toxic byproducts and socially traumatic outcomes of nuclear weapons production and testing disproportionately harmed First Nations homelands and peoples. Subsequent scholarship has confirmed the depredations of what is now typically referred to as “nuclear colonialism” impacting Indigenous bodies and terrains worldwide. As a new generation of scholars map the scope and outcomes of nuclear colonialism in books and journal articles, Indigenous activists have increasingly turned to the arts to voice personal expressions of their collective nuclear experience and its troubling legacies. 

This symposium follows in the footsteps of two pathbreaking exhibitions. Between 2016-2019, the touring exhibition Black Mist Burnt Country: Testing the Bomb. Maralinga and Australian Art, curated by Jan Dirk Mittman for the Burrinja Cultural Centre outside of Melbourne, told the story of British Atomic testing in Australia during the 1950s through artworks by Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. In 2021, Exposure: Native Art & Political Ecology, curated by Manuela Well-Off-Man for the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, charted international Indigenous artists’ responses to the impacts of nuclear accidents, nuclear testing, and uranium mining.

Speakers include Greg Castillo, professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley; Nici Cumpston OAM (Barkandji), artist, curator, writer, and director of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia; Danielle E. Endres, professor of communication and director of the Environmental Humanities Program at the University of Utah; and Will Wilson (Diné), photographer and trans-customary artist.

Nuclear Colonialism and the Art of Resistance is organized by the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia. It is supported by UVA Arts and the Center for Global Inquiry and Innovation (CGII).

SCHEDULE

November 6-7:

Screening of VR experience Collisions (2016), Scholars’ Lab, UVA Library. Martu elder and artist Nyarri Nyarri Morgan worked with the artist Lynette Wallworth to share his story of witnessing the British atomic testing at Maralinga in Australia’s Western Desert.

Friday, November 7:

12:30pm Welcome

12:45 pm Danielle E. Endres, professor of communication and director of the Environmental Humanities Program at the University of Utah

1:30 pm Will Wilson (Diné), photographer and trans-customary artist

2:00 pm Coffee Break – additional time to watch Collisions

 2:30 pm Greg Castillo, professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley

3:00 pm Nici Cumpston (Barkandji), artist, curator, writer, and director of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia

3:30 pm Q&A with all speakers moderated by Tiffany King, Barbara and John Glynn Research Professorship in Democracy and Equity, Associate Chair, and Associate Professor of Women, Gender & Sexuality; co-director of the Black & Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute (BIFFI)

4:15 pm Program ends