On the show this week we hear about a major national touring art exhibition titled 'Black Mist Burnt Country' which commemorates the 60th anniversary of the British atomic test series at Maralinga in South Australia. It revisits the events and its location through the artworks by Indigenous and non-Indigenous contemporary artists across the mediums of painting, print-making, sculpture, installation, photography and new media. 

The works in the exhibition collectively span a period of seven decades, from the first use of the atomic bomb on civilians in Hiroshima and into the post-WW II era, through the times of anti-nuclear protest in the 1980s to the present day. The exhibition is planned to commence in September 2016  at the SH Ervin Gallery in Sydney, and tour nationally to public galleries and museums across five states in 2017 and 2018.

We speak with curator of this exhibition, JD Mittmann, from Burrinja Gallery in Upwey, who takes us through the ideas around the exhibition and some of the works included. We also talk with Paul Ogier, an New Zealand & Australian photographer who has photographed Maraling and Emufield, as well as Warren Tantja Paul, an Anangu artist from Yalata community in far west south Australia. Warren is a line-drawing artist and sculptor who has most recently began a new series of drawings and sculptures in reference to the Maralinga atomic tests, as a result of a mentorship with Ceduna Art Centre’s Pam Diment.