There is a huge challenge for high-level radioactive waste: the construction of a clay memorial to store a waste that is a major concern for the 21st century.

This is because the dangerousness of such waste should trigger a particular attitude, a sense of perspective. The preliminary study calls for an industrial structure. But what is missing is the image of the clay barrier that will enclose the waste and reveal its gradual metamorphosis: a vast complex solidifying under the action of the heat released by the energy of the highly radioactive waste.

How do we visualise this structure, this “monument of the future” entombed in time?

I intend to reveal it today by means of a form of dialogue or an image. The discussion is articulated by combining documentary and artistic considerations.

Who would deny that a civilisation's memory is reflected in the appearance of its monuments? The concept of the “Laboratory”, (1) with its building, the “BâtLab”, is emerging on the surface. This is a place of encounters, exchanges and research that allows acknowledging and evaluating the modes of transmission and their regeneration in the landscape and in time. This is the place where the artist becomes a custodian, and this proposition is essential to the surface of the site.  The absence of an image is a problem for anyone who, today, plunged into a “visual” society, seeks to understand all that happens around them. The absence of knowledge confronts them with their fears, and they grow disillusioned. This marks the birth of a nuclear culture.

I work to achieve this understanding by imagining a clay form, a sarcophagus, which safeguards the industrial structure.

A video accompanies the poster Fragments of a monument. This fiction explores the elements of the clay gangue that change over time. The scenarios are based on scanned clay pieces and the images are then animated.

Participation at the Clay Conference supported by ANDRA.