The Atom & Us: Min-Kyoo Kim

“These people not only died in a moment of unfathomable violence; they were almost erased from memory altogether.”

Meandering over the pebbles, Vicki Lesley, Nov 16, 2024

Welcome to ‘The Atom & Us’, a new series of interviews in which I will be spotlighting the work and thought contributions of some of the incredibly interesting individuals I’ve been privileged to get to know through making & distributing my own nuclear history film, ‘The Atom: A Love Affair‘.

…………………………………… it’s my absolute pleasure to introduce you to my first contributor in the series:

Min-Kyoo Kim

…………………………………………………………….. Is there an event or experience from your personal involvement with nuclear that particularly stands out in your memory and why?

After finishing my Master’s, I went travelling in Korea. It was in a local museum in Busan, in the south-east of the country, that I first learned that tens of thousands of Koreans – alongside Chinese and other East Asians, as colonised subjects of Japan – had been killed in the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These people not only died in a moment of unfathomable violence; they were almost erased from memory altogether.

This, I think, is the horrifying character of nuclear weapons; under the spectacle of the mushroom cloud lies a multitude of stories yet to be told, injustices yet to be redressed. Crucially, it’s not just the bombs themselves – it’s the untold legacies of extracting radioactive material in places like Congo, or the consequences of tests conducted on Indigenous territories around the globe, that demand our attention.

Why do you personally find it a compelling topic?

I have two answers, one academic and one more personal and political.

Regarding my research, I’ve been interested in how eye-witness testimonies of nuclear explosions focus on the blinding effects of the atomic flash. The very impossibility of perceiving this violence obviously poses a challenge to the medium of film and photography. For me, this blinding effect of the bomb also enacts a metaphor for how mainstream culture and politics tend to forget the other myriad forms of violence associated with nuclear proliferation, as in the cases I outlined in the previous answer.

Then, there’s the personal/ political answer, which is altogether simpler: I believe in a world without nuclear weapons. Now, like any stressed PhD student, I find myself asking what my work actually means, if anything. It’s why I’ve so appreciated meeting other scholars, activists and artists working in this area; the opportunity to share knowledge, not only with each other but with the wider public, is something that keeps me going.

Why do you think it has always been such a polarising issue and do you have any thoughts on if/how the discourse can be expanded to move beyond a simplistic pro- or anti- binary opposition?

I do believe – simplistically – that there is no moral justification for nuclear weapons. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the Doomsday Clock is closer to Midnight (the symbolic hour of apocalypse) than at any previous point, so as far as I’m concerned, there is no time for ambiguity.

The real complexity of the discourse is when we talk about nuclear power in the civil sphere. It would seem that nuclear power is indispensable to any hopes of a future with clean, renewable energy.

I would just bear in mind, at the same time, that the boundaries between civil and military uses of nuclear power are blurred, and that these infrastructures can be appropriated for either purpose: the case of the Windscale fire in 1957, in the U.K., was an early example, while EDF recently announced that they would produce radioactive material for France’s nuclear weapons programme………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

…………………………………………………………………………………more https://vickilesley.substack.com/p/the-atom-and-us-min-kyoo-kim?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2042878&post_id=151644494&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email