„In the midst of the current energy crisis, how do we think about nuclear energy, the wastes of its past and the search for energy alternatives? Can we imagine energy futures not only without fossil fuel, but also beyond the nuclear? And have and can communities impacted by radioactive infrastructures lived with its legacies? Inspired by the three types of rock—salt, clay, and granite—that are considered suitable ‘containers’ for nuclear waste storage, SALT. CLAY. ROCK. On nuclear pasts and radiant futures took a situated and site-specific approach to artistic research, focusing on sites in Germany and Hungary. In a Research Assembly in November 2023 and an exhibition from November 2024 until February 2025, the project was presented to the public.

Two publications were created within this framework, which now can be downloaded here:

A comprehensive exhibition guide was published for the exhibition, providing insights into the artistic positions of Ana Alenso, András Cséfalvay, Krisztina Erdei & Dániel Misota, Csilla Nagy & Rita Süveges, Sonya Schönberger, Marike Schreiber, Katarina Šević, Dominika Trapp, and Anna Witt. It also presents various of the research sites in Germany and Hungary that host nuclear infrastructures (such as uranium mines, power plants, and waste repositories), or that have been important sites of anti-nuclear resistance.

At the conclusion of the project, a report in the form of a CO2 logbook was published. This publication follows the work of the curatorial team on the path to a climate-neutral project realization, which was pursued as part of funding from the „Zero Fund“ program of the German Federal Cultural Foundation. It includes discussions on climate neutrality, a description of the challenges and obstacles in climate-neutral cultural production, and a logbook that illustrates the task of climate accounting by following the chronology of this two-year, transnational curatorial and artistic research project.

nGbK work group: Katalin Erdődi, Marc Herbst, Julia Kurz, Virág Major-Kremer, Vincent Schier