Roger Peet will discuss the Shinkolobwe mine, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, that sourced nearly all of the uranium used in the Manhattan Project. The uranium that powered the discovery of nuclear fission and its use in the first atomic weapons came from Shinkolobwe. Vastly more concentrated and powerful than any other deposit of uranium found anywhere else on Earth, the Shinkolobwe ore made possible an apocalyptic effort of engineering that has transformed the way that power works in the modern world. The mine's exploitation has left a legacy of contaminated territories, poisoned communities, and a gross shadow of atomic devastation which echoes through our most popular contemporary stories, and clouds our ability to imagine a different world. Roger’s presentation will describe the arc of that history, and display an original linocut map-print which traces the evidence left behind in the landscape by those Congolese rocks; the foundation of the Manhattan Project.

Roger Peet is an artist and printmaker in Portland, OR. He is a founding member of the Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, a group of North American artists creating visual tools for social and environmental movements, and coordinates the national Endangered Species Mural Project for the Center for Biological Diversity. He is currently collaborating with organizers and activists in Congo, Japan, and across the USA to connect the story of the Shinkolobwe mine to the broader history of America's nuclear legacy, including the contaminated landscapes of the Hanford Site.

Register Here

The Nuclear Waste Scholar Series is funded through a Public Participation Grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology. The content was reviewed for grant consistency, but is not necessarily endorsed by the agency.