My first photo book “The Elephant’s Foot” will be published this Autumn/Winter by Yogurt Editions, under the curation work of Francesco Rombaldi @francesco_rombaldi .
“The Elephant’s Foot is a photographic and research project that, through adopting the strategies of both fiction and documentary genres, explores the expanded boundaries of real nuclear accidents.
The setting is a small town on the banks of a contaminated river, and the narrative follows how radioactive exposure impacts the human body, society and the wider natural world.
Something has clearly happened in the scenes depicted and the accumulating ambiance of the series; the iconography and imagery are clearly recognisable from much modern popular culture.
However the rootlessness of time and place allows the author to bring his audience on a journey into the possible, the contingent, and as such highlights the ever present, though largely invisible, dangers of radiation and nuclear fallout.
The project’s fictive drive plays with space and time, questioning how such events have unfolded in the past and why they’ve been so prone to secrecy, paranoia and indeed cover-up.
Though based heavily on research, Nurton presents the story within the frame of a sci-fi script he has developed, making it a dystopian story albeit one wholly honest to real events.”
words: @broken_dimanche
design: @wutu_wutu
“What hasn’t happened, but could. The invisible and yet incapacitating. The fear of radiation has long fueled the imagination, driving the need for stories of redress and warning.
Nausea. Headache. Vomiting. Incapacitation. What happens to a body once its exposed to radiation?
The Elephant’s Foot is a fictional project based on real nuclear accidents that has happened throughout the last decades. Set in uncertain locations and times, its departure is from a small town on the banks of a contaminated river, and follows how radioactive exposure impacts the human body, society and the natural as a whole.
The images created by the author are the result of deep immersion in the study of a number of real-life radiation accidents.
The project’s fictive drive allows photographer Edward Nurton to play with space and time, questioning how these events have unfolded and why they’re so prone to secrecy, paranoia and indeed cover-up.
Though based heavily on investigation, Nurton presents the story within the frame of a sci-fi script he has developed, making it a dystopian story albeit one wholly true to real events.
By interrogating details, one can parse that everything has a reference – may it be the date of a disaster, the location of a town, or a man's bodily injuries.”
Words by @broken_dimanche
Project developed with @yogurt.magazine lab
