A nuclear fusion love story
In 2018, I created a mixed media installation for our group show titled Fornax Transformed – A Nuclear Fusion Love Story. The work combined an oil painting (182 x 122 cm) with 36 spray-painted loaves of bread, referencing Fornax, the Roman goddess of the oven. With this piece I wanted to engage curiosity about nuclear fusion – the reaction that powers the Sun and stars – and its potential as a source of safe, limitless, non-carbon energy for our future.
Bread, Wheat and Civilisation
Bread became my metaphor for fusion’s life-giving power. Just as wheat depends on sunlight and human innovation to become bread, so too has civilisation always advanced by harnessing new energy sources. Wheat, first domesticated around 10,000 BCE, fuelled the rise of cities and culture. Nuclear fusion may represent the next great step – a new “Fusion Age” built on abundant clean energy.
Machines, Forms and Futures
The painting drew on images of the tokamak, an experimental fusion reactor. I reduced its cables and coils into geometric rhythms, echoed by the sculptural placement of bread loaves. This dialogue between canvas and object blurred boundaries, drawing the audience into the work. At its heart, the piece asks us to look past fear and lobbyist narratives to re-imagine nuclear energy as a pathway of possibility rather than dystopia.
