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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Lifestyle
Rosamund Brennan

‘Like a radioactive cloud’: elegance and horror combine in powerful Yhonnie Scarce exhibition

Glass bush bananas placed on a flat surface glowing green in the blue darkness
Scarce’s installation, Hollowing Earth, features glass bush bananas infused with trace amounts of uranium – a reference to the desecration of country through uranium mining. Photograph: Bo Wong

Yhonnie Scarce grew up in the grim aftermath of nuclear weapons testing in South Australia in the 50s and 60s, not far from her birthplace of Woomera. From the tender age of ten, she heard stories from elders about a cataclysmic roar, the sky turning red and a poisonous black mist hovering over the desert, like an apparition.

Born in 1973, the Kothakha and Nukunu glass artist has spent much of her career researching the British government’s testing of nuclear weapons in Maralinga and Emu Field, which she says “lit a fire in my heart that hasn’t been extinguished”.

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