Mary Kavanagh: Daughters of Uranium

Abstract

"Kavanagh’s work radically challenges notions of contamination and containment, invisibility, violence, exposure and evidence. In her catalogue essay, “A Radioactive Domestic,” Jayne Wilkinson offers a feminist reading of the exhibition, noting that Kavanagh structures the Nuclear as a totalizing concept rather than a specific event or period. By not relying on typical nuclear signifiers in broad circulation such as photographs of enduring mushroom clouds, “Kavanagh’s approach is unique in the visual records of the atomic era…. [her] work frames a critique of militarism and military aesthetics through encounter and touch in order to understand how war impacts the body through generational histories.”" -- Publisher's website