Between Fires: Irradiated Imaginations and Anti-Nuclear Solidarities. Graphic design by Ayym Zhaishylyk. 25 Mar 2026
18:30 - 20:00
Exhibition Tour: Between Fires: Irradiated Imaginations and Anti-Nuclear Solidarities
Join for a guided tour of the exhibition Between Fires: Irradiated Imaginations and Anti-Nuclear Solidarities with curator Fabienne Rachmadiev and Sonic Acts Biennial curator Angeliki Tzortzakaki. Together, they trace how the exhibition’s works connect directly to the wider themes of the Biennial, unfolding shared questions around nuclear infrastructures, colonial legacies, land, memory and resistance. Additionally, the tour features a performance by artist duo buulbuul. The event is co-organised by Sonic Acts and Framer Framed.
The exhibition Between Fires: Irradiated Imaginations and Anti-Nuclear Solidarities (2026) traces the intertwined histories of nuclear infrastructures, colonialism and resistance, beginning in the Northern Kazakh steppe around Semey, which the Soviet Union used for their nuclear programme between 1948 and 1991, causing long-lasting effects of pollution and radiation of water, land, humans and non-human animals.
Behind the geopolitical, financial and militarised structures of the atom, lie the lifeworlds of those directly affected by the cycle of mining uranium to detonating and testing nuclear weapons, turning bodies and lands into storage sites of nuclear waste. Compounded by radiation’s famed invisibility, the carefully constructed invisibility of nuclear infrastructures serves as a double erasure, complicating solidarity and cooperation between affected people and territories.
The historical Nevada-Semey anti-nuclear movement sought to undo precisely this obscuring by uniting affected communities from Kazakhstan and the United States, successfully ending Soviet nuclear testing in 1989. In a particularly moving gesture, this anti-nuclear uprising saw hundreds of people walking together between two pillars of fire, an ancient purification ritual, harnessed to repair radiation’s damage to the steppe.
The exhibition at Framer Framed seeks to renew this transnational intention of anti-nuclear movements, by connecting irradiated lifeworlds through new and existing poetic, visual, and sonic art, featuring works by artists including buulbuul, Demian DinéYazhi’, Inas Halabi, Äsel Kadyrkhanova, Dilyara Kaipova, Almagul Menlibayeva, Kamila Narysheva & Vicky Clarke, Roger Peet, and Emilija Škarnulytė, as well as research presentations by Kamila Smagulova (Leiden University) and the International Institute of Social History (IISG) – testifying to the temporalities and spatialities of nuclear colonialism across various geographies.
The guided tour also features buulbuul’s performance The Burial of a Brown Goose, rooted in the nuclear-affected regions of Kazakhstan and based on a song by Junisbay (1891–1973). Through voice, ritual, and a distorted soundscape shaped by contaminated soil, water, and air, the work carries grief, rage, and forms of generational care shaped by long-term ecological damage.
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This event is in English. Admission is free, pay what you can.
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This event may be photographed and filmed. Kindly let us know in advance if you prefer not to have your picture taken. For seated programmes, places are always made available for wheelchair users. Please speak to the host before the programme begins.
Credits
Between Fires: Irradiated Imaginations and Anti-Nuclear Solidarities is curated by Fabienne Rachmadiev and on show at Framer Framed until 17 May 2026. The exhibition is commissioned and produced by Framer Framed and presented in partnership with Sonic Acts as part of Sonic Acts Biennial 2026.
Graphic design inspired by the purification ritual in Karaul, Kazakhstan, 6 August, 1989, depicted in Nevada i Semipalatinsk (1989), dir. Sergey Shafir, Kazakhfilm.
Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.
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Exhibitions
Exhibition: Between Fires – Irradiated Imaginations & Anti-Nuclear Solidarities
Curated by Fabienne Rachmadiev, the exhibition traces the intertwined histories of nuclear infrastructures, colonialism and resistance, presented in collaboration with Sonic Acts
Agenda
Nuclear Histories and Protest Movements
A film programme and public lecture addressing the intergenerational impact and slow violence of nuclear colonialism from a gender-focused perspective
Network
buulbuul
Music and Performance Duo
Angeliki Tzortzakaki
Curator and writer
