Abstract

Bringing together an assemblage of archival materials, photo documents, literature and found objects, Pechblende investigates concepts of scale, proximity and distance in relation to radioactivity and the body. Centred on the highly radioactive and uranium-rich mineral pitchblende (German: Pechblende), the work traces a history of scientific and photographic processes narrated through the interconnected sites of laboratory, archive, museum and mine. Pitchblende was mined in the Ore Mountains of the former German Democratic Republic between 1946 and 1989. Today, the former mining sites are under way to being transformed into a tranquil mountain vista, with few recognizable traces of the still-radiating industrial worksites. Concerned with both the literal and the political invisibility of radioactivity, Kriemann produced ‘autoradiographs’ – a unique type of photograph that is the result of directly exposing light-sensitive paper to the pitchblende specimens. Aiming to visualize what is invisible and yet acutely present: radioactivity.