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Home > 2018 Exhibition

Fallout

One is the only country to have tested nuclear weapons in the 21st century. The other is the first country to have tested and used them. North Korea and the United States are at two ends of the nuclear equation – but today are locked in a dangerous cycle of threats and counter-threats. Documentary photographer Sim Chi Yin travelled 6,000 kilometers along the China-North Korea border and through six states in United States, to create a series of images reflecting on humans’ experience with nuclear weapons, past and present.

A Titan II Missile in its silo at a former intercontinential ballistic missile site in Arizona, November 2017. / A Titan II Missile in its silo at a former intercontinential ballistic missile site in Arizona, now the Titan Missile Museum. The Titan II was the largest and heaviest missile ever built by the United States. The missile was 31.3 m long and 3.05 m wide. It weighed 149,700 kg when fully fueled and had a range of 15,000 km. This is the last of 54 such missiles that were clustered in Arizona, Arkansas and Kansas during the Cold War; the rest have been destroyed.
Fence along the China-North Korea border, near Tumen city, May 2015. / China and North Korea share a 1,420km border, separated by two rivers and a mountain. This gate was in a fence along the China-North Korea border near the Chinese city of Tumen, just across the Tumen River from the North Korean town of Namyang. Tumen City offers clear views into North Korea and attracts Chinese tourists -- and sometimes North Korean fugitives who wade across the river into China. There is a large ethnic Korean population native to Tumen city which is a part of Yanbian prefecture. In early 2015, there were reports of a series of incidents involving North Korean soldiers or citizens coming over and stealing or killing Chinese residents in the Helong area, about 80km west of Tumen. China has stepped up border patrols and built new border fences over stretches of its border with North Korea.
DIPTYCH. Left: The pyramid-shaped Missile Site Control Building stands in the middle of the Stanley R Mickelsen SAFEGUARD Complex. This anti-ballistic missile defense site -- the only one of its kind to be built in the US -- was designed to detect and intercept attacking nuclear warheads from Soviet missiles coming over the North Pole. Nuclear-tipped Sprint and Spartan anti-ballistic missiles were deployed at the site to shoot down the incoming Soviet missiles. The facility, built in the early to mid 1970s at a cost of US$5.7 billion, near Langdon, North Dakota, was fully operational for only a day in October 1975 before Congress voted to shut it down. At the time, it was one of the most advanced radar systems and had among the most powerful computers in the world. With its deterrent effect, it is seen as having been a bargaining chip for the US in the SALT treaties. Right: Looking from China into North Korea over Mount Paektu, elevation 2,744 m, an active volcano on the border of the two countries. The mountain and the crater lake formed by a volcanic eruption are divided between North Korea and China. The highest mountain on the Korean peninsula and northeast China, it is regarded by North and South Koreans as a sacred place that is their countries’ spiritual home. Imagery of this mountain features in many North Korean propaganda paintings. October 28, 2017

Sim Chi Yin

Sim Chi Yin (1978, Singapore) is a visual artist and documentary photographer. She is from Singapore and has been based in Beijing for the past decade. She works focusing on history, memory, conflict, and migration and its consequences. She was commissioned as the Nobel Peace Prize photographer in 2017 and created a solo show for the Nobel Peace Center museum in Oslo on nuclear weapons.