Nuclear Wildness

The discovery of nuclear energy marked a new era for humanity. Nuclear production cycle, on the one hand, has protected several areas from the threat of urbanization, while fulfilling considerable energy demands; on the other hand, it has resulted in radioactive waste, in addition to accidental catastrophic episodes, contaminating entire ecosystems, condemned as sacrificial victims. Nuclear landscapes are born: vast, insalubrious sites, remote and inhospitable. In the late 1980s, a massive reclassification of the “apocalypse gardens” begins. Some of them were enlisted as national wildlife reserves, others became involuntary parks. Apparently, these post-nuclear oases are characterized by a primal image of nature: pristine, idyllic, bare, spontaneous; the embodiment of degradation and redemption. It is an unreleased kind of wilderness, a living archive of human ecocides; indeed these primordial habitats are also off – limits frontiers of waste; dangerous but fascinating, protected but feared. The essay investigates the evolution of these unique environments where nature has run its course, despite the wounds inflicted by mankind, eluding its control. The discussion crosses their boundaries, in order to examine the double face of the new "nuclear wild-ness", the thin line between contaminated and uncontaminated.