It has been over 60 years since the atomic bomb was dropped, but the A-bomb is everywhere in Hiroshima. The history of the atomic age is intertwined with that of photography. Hiroshima: After Aftermath develops the relationship between radiation and the visual language of photography, exposing lingering effects and loss. There are 50 cyanotypes (sun prints) of A-Bombed artifacts – indigo blue fields with erased white forms: hair comb; canteen; melted bottle and eucalyptus bark. There are 20 black and white photographic contact prints of rubbings made on paper of A-Bombed surfaces – trees, floors, a bridge, bricks. There is one autoradiograph: a photographic contact print of x-ray film exposed by the lingering radiation in a fragment of an A-Bombed tree stump.

John Berger will write an essay fort he forthcoming book on Daylight (spring, 2013). Hiroshima: After Aftermath is an attempt to reshape how we think about nuclear war and the aftermath. Trying to record the gruesome effects of war and to expose the indiscriminate cruelty of aerial bombardment have been major concerns of slavick's as a visual artist for the past 10 years. Her first book, Bomb After Bomb: A Violent Cartography (Charta Books, Milan, Italy, 2007) is of a series of drawings of places the U.S. has bombed. Like Bomb After Bomb, Hiroshima: After Aftermath visually registers warfare and faces the irreconcilable paradox of making visible the most barbaric as witness, artist, and viewer. As a hibakusha (A-bomb survivor) said in Hiroshima, “There are now over 30,000 nuclear weapons in this world. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not past events. They are about today's situation.”