Curatorial activism is when curators use exhibitions to challenge power, highlight hidden histories, and create conversations about justice and change. In Dr. Maura Reilly’s essay “Towards Curatorial Activism,” she argues that “curating is not neutral; it can and should be used to confront systems of inequality”. The exhibition “The Atomic Cowboy” at the NJCU Visual Arts Gallery is a clear example of this kind of activism. The Daze After revisits and expands Nobuho Nagasawa’s original Atomic Cowboy installation from the 1990s. This version focuses on the long-lasting impact of nuclear testing and how these events are often forgotten or ignored in public memory. The gallery is filled with 120 cans from her piece Nuke-Cuisine, each can representing a nuclear test. Surrounding the cans are photographs, documents, and portraits of people affected by radiation, including well-known figures who worked near test sites.
The main themes are memory, environmental harm, and the invisibility of nuclear consequences. The work draws attention to how many nuclear tests have happened and how their effects continue long after the event. In the “daze after,” when attention fades but the damage remains.
This exhibition is activist because it forces viewers to confront what has been erased. Instead of presenting nuclear testing as distant history, it highlights how it touches people, land, and culture. The curator’s decision to bring back Atomic Cowboy decades later shows a commitment to making this issue visible again.
Kimberly Drew writes, “Art is a tool. It can build community, incite ideas, and solicit change”. Here, the curator uses art to keep a dangerous part of history in public conversation. By framing the work in today’s context, when nuclear tensions still exist, the curator isn’t just showing art, they’re taking a stand.
Authors, historians, and curators can also act as activists when they choose whose stories to tell and how to frame them. In this case, the exhibition connects facts, images, and artistic expression to push the audience to reflect on what nuclear power has done, and still does.
Nuke-Cuisine is composed of a large number of “Cloud of Mushroom Soup” cans, the artist's name is Nobuho Nagasawa. It was originally 835, now 120 in the NJCU version, each can referencing a nuclear test event. By repurposing a domestic object (a soup can) into a visual count of atomic tests, Nagasawa materializes the vast scope of nuclear violence in an accessible but haunting form. The repetition and sheer volume of the cans evoke both the banality and enormity of nuclear infrastructure. This work forces the viewer to confront how many tests we scarcely remember or acknowledge, and to see the cumulative weight of these acts. It connects with discussions of invisible harm: each test may be “hidden” in public memory, but the accumulation is stark.
The Daze After uses small action figures painted blue, white, and red, organized in the style of the American flag. When having a closer look you can see the native Americans and cowboys, both looking like stereotypical television tropes, are what it seems to be battling it out. Over what? Most likely the land they stand on. Cowboys are white stripes and Native Americans are red. The stars are cowboys painted blue and going in all directions. A lot of conflict happened over the American flag and America as a whole. This installation wall pairs small toys with a stark history about the recent past. It confronts viewers with facts, making it harder to look away. It’s activist art because it creates empathy and awareness, reminding people that the story didn’t end with the conflict, it continues in the lives affected afterward.
Works Cited
Drew, Kimberly. This Is What I Know About Art.
Reilly, Maura. “Towards Curatorial Activism.”
NJCU Visual Arts Gallery. “Atomic Cowboy: The Daze After.”
Westwood Gallery NYC, “Nobuho Nagasawa at NJCU Visual Arts Gallery.”
Gallery Exhibits: Atomic Cowboy & Take It Home - Artist Talk.” NJCU.
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