Radioactive ruins in La Hague: the Cold War legacy of civil and military nuclear techno-politics through the investigation of trace evidence within

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Away from the media coverage of accidents and catastrophes, nuclear techno-politics are murky, complex and hidden. They ask for challenging forms of research, creative propositions and innovative methodologies to be accounted for. Which aesthetic strategies can make radiotoxicity tangible? How to testify for often forgotten and familiar landscapes where radioactivity has left trace evidences, health threats, devastated eco systems, which due to its invisibility, are ignored bymost of us? How to merge scientific data and aesthetics?The Norman peninsula of La Hague at the tip of the Cotentin region is a unique territory to investigate the legacy of 50 years of nuclear production, refuelling and waste management. With 4 different nuclear plans located in a 50km radius, the nuclear techno-politics cover various stages of civil and military nuclear industries: electricity production at Flamanville (EPR still under construction), the recently 300 years sealed Andra's nuclear waste repository, La Hague refuellingnuclear plant, and finally the Cherbourg Arsenal where nuclear propelled submarined are built. Since the 50's, the Norman peninsula is embedded within the French nuclear program, underlying the deep, controversial and often censored connections between the civil and military nuclear realm, (G Hecht). Except for Zonabend's sociological research (EHESS, Paris, 1993), no recent academic project has investigated the environmental, human and toxic territories of the region.