Alexis Destoop

 HOURGLASS [Hades]

photographic installation - 2019

pigment prints on archival mat paper, mounted on 5 offset aluminium panels - 320cm x 130cm x 4cm

In the context of the research on Deep-Time initiated by Z33 (BE) and Nuclear Culture (UK), a group of artists were invited to attend a workshop around radioactive waste disposal in Belgium. A former royal property in low-lying forest lands in the East of the country was developed as an international research facility on civilian nuclear energy, since the 1950’s. The integrated modern design of the scientific site around an experimental reactor, encapsulates research and housing facilities bears witness to the Atomic Age in hte middle of a tighly secured area that saw the ulterior development of radio-active waste processing infrastructure. While the site is still operational, much of the work undertaken there is dealing with waste-management and disposal.

The basic footage of the work comes from a experimental burial site for high-level waste: the idea for this piece of engineered architecture is to hold the supercontainers in which highly radioactive waste is contained.

It’s a play on a grid like structure, with repeated elemenrts, measurement