Vincent Mattina “In the Shadows of the Giant Mushrooms”
Vincent Mattina “In the Shadows of the Giant Mushrooms”
This body of work examines the legacy of uranium mining and the atomic age in the American West. Through assemblage, mixed media, and video, I trace the arc from extraction to exposure, from scientific ambition to environmental and human consequence. The materials I use, industrial gauges, x-rays, skeletal forms, archival references, and domestic objects, collapse the distance between policy and body, between national security and private illness.
Utah occupies a central role in this narrative. Its landscape supplied uranium that fueled the Cold War, powered weapons programs, and shaped global geopolitics. Yet the same terrain carries abandoned mines, contaminated aquifers, and communities living with elevated rates of respiratory disease and cancer. The promise of progress was inseparable from the cost of contamination. What was framed as patriotism and prosperity often left behind silence and neglect.
This exhibition does not argue against science. It questions the systems that prioritize expansion, profit, and dominance over ecological and human health. It asks who benefits from extraction and who absorbs its residue. It asks what remains long after urgency fades.
At its core, this work is about consequence. Uranium transformed the modern world. It also transformed the land and the people closest to it. The question that persists is not whether we can harness such power, but whether we can live responsibly with what we have already set in motion. The exhibition, “In the Shadow of the Giant Mushrooms,” is a call to vigilance, asking viewers to stand in the “moment between later and too late” and reckon with the permanent environmental and human reactions to our nuclear actions.
Additional Details
Location City - Salt Lake City
Ticket Price - Free
Age Restriction - All Ages
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