Resisting Nuclear Armament in the 21st Century — Taylor Dunne and Eric Stewart

What does a people’s history of nuclear weapons look like? Through popular books and government records, the Manhattan Project is remembered as a triumph of scientific innovation. This institutional memory fetishizes the novelty of nuclear fission while ignoring the communities and ecosystems exposed to radiation and industrial contamination.

Through their project, Off Country, Dunne and Stewart interrogate the institutional racism of the nuclear weapons industry, using oral history to articulate how the creation of “National Sacrifice Zones” has disproportionately affected native and Anglo-ranching people as well as communities of color throughout the Southwest. The filmmakers will preview their in-production feature film Off Country and facilitate a conversation about how experimental cinema and documentary can augment, resist, and subvert the institutional memory of the nuclear weapons industry.