From February 13 to May 17, 2026, Framer Framed, in collaboration with Sonic Acts, presents the exhibition Between Fires: Irradiated Imaginations and Anti-Nuclear Solidarities, curated by writer and researcher Fabienne Rachmadiev. The opening is on Friday, February 13, from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
Between Fires presents a multi-layered history in which nuclear technologies, colonial power structures, and forms of resistance are inextricably linked.
The Northern Kazakh steppe around Semey plays a key role in this story. Between 1948 and 1991, the Soviet Union conducted large-scale nuclear tests here, with far-reaching consequences: severe pollution and radioactive contamination of water, land, humans, and non-human animals.
Despite this, Kazakhstan's nuclear legacy remains largely overlooked. Both the ecology of the steppe and the colonial logic of the Soviet and Russian empires have been marginalized by the dominant narrative of the Cold War.
The structural secrecy surrounding nuclear programs contributes to this invisibility. Under the guise of security, crucial information is withheld, even though it is essential for achieving justice. Behind these geopolitical, financial, and military structures lie people whose lives are directly affected by the cycle of uranium mining and nuclear weapons testing.
Thus, bodies and landscapes are transformed into repositories for nuclear waste. Compounded by the invisibility of radiation, the shielded nuclear infrastructure acts as a double erasure, straining solidarity between affected regions and communities.
Two new works have been developed specifically for Between Fires, made possible in part by Framer Framed and Sonic Acts. In The Burial of a Brown Goose, buulbuul presents an installation and performance that traces the lines of nuclear-test-affected areas in Kazakhstan.
The work explores relationships between humans and other life forms in contexts of colonial violence and genocide. With Nükte, Äsel Kadyrkhanova presents a combination of video animation and a large-scale drawing installation, in which she approaches the landscape as fundamentally unknowable after radioactive damage.
