ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½

ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ Art Galleries presents Atomic Dragons, a group exhibition by the intergenerational collective SWANS (Slow War Against the Nuclear State), featuring Fiona Amundsen, Nancy Buchanan, Judith Dancoff, Hillary Mushkin, Sheila Pinkel, elin o’Hara slavick, and Lucy HG Solomon of Cesar & Lois, her collaboration with Cesar Baio. Formed in 2022, SWANS examines the social, political, and environmental impact of the nuclear age through video, photography, drawing, sculpture, archival materials, mixed media, and research-based works.  

Rooted in feminist art lineages, decolonial practice, and anti-nuclear environmental activism, Atomic Dragons connects the personal and the political, linking the Cold War and the start of the atomic era to present-day questions of waste, contamination, transgenerational nuclear justice, and the global expansion of nuclear weapons and power plants. The exhibition underscores how nuclear imperialism is inseparable from colonial histories, from uranium mining on Indigenous lands to weapons testing in colonized and occupied territories. Drawing on family archives from renowned physicists, the Manhattan Project, and histories of activism, several members address the long-term impacts on their life trajectories as they continue to grapple with the nuclear legacy. Tracing the nuclear lifecycle from extraction and testing to production and waste, the exhibition foregrounds its enduring human and environmental costs.  

Bringing together works that reckon with the fallout of the atomic era, Atomic Dragons places historical narratives alongside contemporary discourse, demonstrating that these concerns are not just relics of a bygone Cold War era. From Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukushima and Chernobyl to local sites such as San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County, the exhibition shows that these issues of waste management, public health, and the growth of nuclear weapons are critical and long-term concerns. 

In the news

Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2026 

Hyperallergic, March 27, 2026
 

Related events

Film Screening: In the Dark of the Valley
April 1, 5 pm

In 1959, a partial nuclear meltdown just 30 miles from Downtown Los Angeles caused a devastating radiation leak that was hidden from the public for two decades.

Symposium: Art, Science, and the Nuclear Legacy
April 4, 11 am–4 pm

The nuclear age has left traces in landscapes, bodies, and communities across the globe—shaping our geopolitics, our environments, and the burdens carried across generations. This full-day symposium brings together artists and nuclear experts to grapple with these consequences, drawing connections across science, policy, personal history, and creative practice.

Jim Walsh is a nuclear policy expert and senior research associate at MIT’s Security Studies Program who has testified before Congress and traveled to Iran and North Korea for diplomatic talks on nuclear issues, and David Richardson who is an epidemiologist and associate dean for research at UC Irvine Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health whose research on cancer among nuclear workers and atomic bomb survivors has informed international radiation policy. SWANS artists Nancy Buchanan, Judith Dancoff, Hillary Mushkin, Sheila Pinkel, and elin o’Hara slavick joined Tamara Cedré, artist and visiting professor of photography at ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½, for a conversation exploring the history behind their work in the exhibition.

This program was made possible by the Murray Pepper and Vicki Reynolds Pepper Distinguished Visiting Artist & Scholar Lecture Endowed Fund at ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½.

Additional support was provided by Claremont Colleges Debate Union.
 

Image: Nancy Buchanan, American Dreams #3: Sweet Dreams, 1981, pastel and pencil on paper, courtesy of the artist