The Influencers,
one of the most exciting art festival in Europe nowadays, started
yesterday: James Acord’s, the world’s first nuclear sculptor, told the
story of the years he spent learning how to execute the most modern
alchemy, the conversion of radioactive waste into inert material and
subsequently into sculptures. Acord, the only person in the world
licensed to work with radioactive material, through his 20 years long
research digs into the hypocrisy of the nuclear era, whose policies,
developed in war ages, are dipped into secrecy. The idea of transmutation
goes back to its mythical root, that of the alchemic prodigious of the
conversion of an element into another element. The idea that matter is
interchangeable is still of incredible appeal, triggering actions and
reactions. The sculptor made, among others, an interesting reflection
around nuclear cemeteries and all those contaminated places where there
should be non-verbal signs of danger to be universally
understandable for centuries: here is a struggle it is predictable that
the symbolism of danger will change in human culture so how to create a
sculpture which serve its purpose long enough?
– written in Barcelona –
