Abbey Hepner’s Transuranic series includes images of every nuclear site in the Western United States that sends radioactive waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). Waste stored in this facility in southern New Mexico is buried deep in the earth and is intended to rest for 10,000 years. Hepner printed her photographs using uranium salts instead of gelatin silver technology, resulting in photographs that are radioactive. Hepner’s work underscores the hidden consequences associated with radioactive technology in our daily lives and on the unassuming landscape.

https://www.cabq.gov/trinity-exhibition/conceptual-art/abbey-hepner

Abbey Hepner
born 1983 Moscow, Idaho; lives Troy, Illinois
Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge, Arvada, Colorado,
Radioactive waste shipped to WIPP: 3,978,943 Gallons
2014
uranotype (uranium print)
9 x 13 in.
lent by the artist, © 2020 Abbey Hepner
photo courtesy of the artist