Toxicity-Exploring Historic Exhibits

The Centre de Design de l'UQAM Presents an Important Exhibit

The Centre de design de l'UQAM is presenting the exhibition 'Toxicité coloniale : Architecture et paysage radioactifs français dans le Sahara' by historian and curator Samia Henni, which documents the French colonial regime's detonation of four atmospheric and 13 underground nuclear bombs in the Algerian Sahara between 1960 and 1966, along with the lasting contamination of living bodies, natural environments, and built structures across Africa and the Mediterranean.

The exhibition uses an immersive multimedia installation consisting of 13 audiovisual stations organized by lightweight paper partitions suspended from binder rings. The display features government documents, military records, handwritten victim testimonies, enlarged archival images, video footage, and an ambient audio track of desert wind, with some pages intentionally left blank to indicate the absence of still-classified archives.

The exhibition also functions as a call to action, demanding the declassification of secret archives and the decontamination of territories where Saharan populations still live.

Image Credit: Graphic design by Supersystème, Benoit Rousseau

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