Half Lives (2023)

HD video, 15 minutes

 

Commissioned as part of Deep Time - Commissions for the Lake District Coast by Copeland Borough Council with the University of Cumbria (CNPPA). Supported by Arts Council England. 

​

Half Lives features interviews with members of Sellafield Nuclear Power Station’s internal LGBTQ+ network. Sellafield was the site of the UK’s first nuclear weapons tests, which then became Britain’s first nuclear power station. It had an extended life recycling European nuclear waste until finally starting a 100 year decommissioning process in 2022. Sellafield is a seemingly unlikely host of one of West Cumbria’s only public-facing queer groups. However, conversations with queer-identifying staff reveal unexpected connections between the work of decommissioning—of building, architecturally, extraordinarily safe spaces—and the work of the network to build socially safe spaces within a historically unwelcoming industry.