Dark Clouds

With its sinister juxtapositions of nuclear power and leisure, Jürgen Nefzger’s Fluffy Clouds is, at first, an ominous vision of the European landscape transformed. Families swim at a beach within sight of the Penly nuclear plant in Normandy; golfers tee off in the shadow of Sellafield; and a fisherman dozes across the river from the reactor at Nogent-sur-Seine. Most jarring of all is the nuclear plant (never used) turned theme park in Kalkar, Germany – where children’s rides weave around the cooling tower. It may look unsettling, but in the face of climate change, tar sands and peak oil, is nuclear energy really so scary? Nefzger’s work, while beautiful, relies on our common fears and apprehension surrounding nuclear power. The quiet menace in the background wouldn’t be so noteworthy if it were coal or gas-powered installations intruding into the countryside. His images make a great starting point for revisiting the future of nuclear energy, when pebble-bed reactors and other so-called ‘Generation IV’ developments could help create safer, more secure plants – only if people are willing to keep an open mind.

Instead, in the afterward, Ulrich Pholmann argues that Nefzger’s images “show how people are growing oblivious to the inherent threat linked to nuclear energy facilities,” while French critic Christophe Catsaros argues that “Fluffy Clouds approaches the inability of a species — ours — to sense the danger that is threatening it.” By focussing on nuclear installations, with their visible, visceral dangers, Fluffy Clouds ignores the thousands of other invisible effects of other forms of power generation: those we can’t see but that threaten our planet far more. Though nuclear energy is far from a clear-cut issue, the idea of people co-existing with it shouldn’t be so shocking.

Fluffy Clouds is published by Hatje Cantz

super/collider is a London-based collective dedicated to exploring science in new ways, be it through writing, events, products or special projects