Nuclear Colonialism and the Art of Resistance

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection is organizing the symposium “Nuclear Colonialism and the Art of Resistance.” In 1993, Indigenous rights scholars Ward Churchill and Winona LaDuke coined the term "Radioactive Colonization" to describe a Cold War order in which toxic byproducts and socially traumatic outcomes of nuclear weapons production and testing disproportionately harmed First Nations homelands and peoples. Subsequent scholarship has confirmed the depredations of what is now typically referred to as "nuclear colonialism" impacting Indigenous terrains and bodies worldwide. This symposium will bring together scholars, traditional knowledge holders, and arts activists from and allied with First Nations cultures across North America and Oceania to interrogate what Danielle Endres calls a "nuclear decolonization" movement.