Colonial Toxicity Book Cover Bookshop Selection: Colonial Toxicity by Samia Henni
Coinciding with the exhibition, Performing Colonial Toxicity, Framer Framed, If Can’t Dance I Don’t Want To Be Part of Your Revolution and edition fink proudly present a new publication by Samia Henni. Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara.
Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara
Between 1960 and 1966, the French colonial regime detonated four atmospheric atomic bombs, thirteen underground nuclear bombs and conducted other nuclear experiments in the Algerian Sahara, whose natural resources were being extracted in the process. This secret nuclear weapons programme, whose archives are still classified, occurred during and after the Algerian Revolution, or the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962).
The publication Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara (2024) brings together nearly six hundred pages of materials documenting this violent history of France’s nuclear bomb programme in the Algerian desert. Meticulously culled together by the architectural historian from across available, offered, contraband, and leaked sources, the book is a rich repository for all those concerned with histories of nuclear weapons and engaged at the intersections of spatial, social and environmental justice, as well as anticolonial archival practices. Colonial Toxicity will be translated into French by Editions B42, the French edition is expected in the fall 2025.
Colonial Toxicity selected as one of the ‘Best Dutch Book Designs 2024’
Every year De Best Verzorgde Boeken celebrates the best products of the graphic industry in The Netherlands. Both the professional and student jury selected Colonial Toxicity as a publication which combined fantastic design and high quality printing and binding. In June 2025 the second print run will become available.
Colonial Toxicity selected as ‘The Most Beautiful Swiss Book 2025’
The publication Colonial Toxicity has been awarded the Most Beautiful Swiss Book in the competition of 2025.
Contributors
Author: Samia Henni
Managing editor: Megan Hoetger
Contributing editor: Georg Rutishauser
Copy editor: Janine Armin
Design: François Girard-Meunier
Publishers
If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam
Framer Framed, Amsterdam
edition fink, Zurich
Specifications
592 pages
ills col
soft cover
17 x 24 cm
English
print print 2024
second print 2025
ISBN 978-90-834543-2-0
Printed and bound by Wilco B.V., Amersfoort, NL
Order
You can order the book through the Framer Framed webshop
International distribution
For international distribution to bookstores contact Ideabooks.
- The Best Dutch Book Designs
- The Most Beautiful Swiss Books
- Critique d' art - Samia Henni, about Colonial Toxicity - by Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou
- e-flux - Jerboasite: Naming French Radioactive Matter in the Sahara
- ECPAD - Observatoire des armements, Centre de documentation et de recherche sur la paix et les conflits
- edition fink - Zurich
- Personal website of Samia Henni
Links
Bookshop Selection / Conflict / Ecology / The living archive / Colonial history / Contested Heritage /
Exhibitions
Exhibition: Performing Colonial Toxicity
An exhibition by researcher and architectural historian Samia Henni, in collaboration with If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution
Agenda
Exhibition tour by architectural historian Samia Henni
Finissage: Performing Colonial Toxicity
Finissage programme for the exhibition Performing Colonial Toxicity including a book launch of Samia Henni's newest publication.
Network
Samia Henni
Architectural historian, Exhibition-maker
Megan Hoetger
Curator, Researcher
Magazine
Ecology / Action Research / The living archive / Colonial history / Contested Heritage /
The living archive / Ecology / Colonial history / Contested Heritage /
Performing Colonial Toxicity travels to Zurich, London and Paris
Podcast / Conflict / The living archive / Colonial history / Contested Heritage /