Concluding report

Nuclear cultural heritage-making is an emergent and fast-growing area of knowledge and practice worldwide. The legacy of building, operating and closing down nuclear power plants, research reactors, testing and deploying nuclear weapons and running nuclear research facilities is intertwined with the making of modern energy systems and global structures of national security. Whereas the end of the Cold War in 1991 coincided with the end of the boom of building nuclear power plants, the 2020s are marked with renewed promises to invest in nuclear power. However, the 1950s-60s anticipation of a radiant nuclear future has been replaced with complex environmental, economic and social concerns around nuclear decommissioning, particularly its impact on local communities, and the challenge of safeguarding nuclear waste and protecting future generations.

In this context, the cultural forms through which we make sense of inherited nuclear infrastructures, as well as the intergenerational transmission of material culture and knowledge, come to the fore. Local resident communities, nuclear industry veterans, anti-nuclear movements and amateur and professional historians of nuclear power have strong interest in documenting the nuclear past and preserving elements of its material culture. Communities exposed to radioactive contamination and land extraction seek restorative justice through cultural heritage action (Jurkonyte 2023; Jacobs 2022; Christopher Hill and Jonathan Hogg, ongoing; Rindzevičiūtė, Dovydaitytė, Kasperski, forthcoming). Additionally, national and international policy and industry bodies have begun to recognise the value of the cultural heritage approach for public engagement and safe decommissioning (for instance, German Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management (BASE), the Radiant Monuments conference organised by ICOMOS (2024); see also Brandt & Dame 2019; SKB 2019; Kärnavfallsrådet et al. 2019; NEA-OECD 2015; Gunn & Croft 2010; Cocroft 2006).

However, what constitutes nuclear cultural heritage and how it can benefit different social groups is unclear and contested. Nuclear decommissioning entails large and costly projects where the imperative is to deliver “value for money” by removing the radioactive and material structures in a speedy and efficient manner. There is a risk, therefore, that valuable tangible and intangible forms of nuclear cultural heritage will be lost and that social inequalities might be perpetuated in the process. In turn, the shrinking material basis of nuclear culture could have detrimental impact on reflexive democracy: as noted by the UK Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS), “the additional value of culture lies in it being a site of contestation, reflecting the importance of disagreement and negotiation in diverse societies” (DCMS 2022).

To address these issues, the international research project Nuclear Spaces: Communities, Materialities and Locations of Nuclear Cultural Heritage (NuSPACES, 2021-2024) was set up to study the cultural heritage process in key national nuclear sites in the UK, Sweden and Lithuania. Although these sites have served different purposes and are located in different contexts, their nuclear reactors were shut down within about a decade: Dounreay in 1994, Barsebäck in 1999 and 2005, Sellafield in 2003, and Ignalina in 2004 and 2009. These developments significantly influenced local economies and communities.

To gather different voices and create new partnerships between different stakeholders, NuSPACES organised workshops and field trips that engaged over 40 leading scholars, creative practitioners, curators, archivists, museum, heritage and information managers, including nuclear sector and atomic settlement representatives.

The NuSPACES research team would like to thank all the participants and the Associate Partner organisations, for their input in the discussions and facilitation of access to the research sites. This final report presents key findings and insights derived from the study of archival sources, public policy documents, media debates, and qualitative semi-structured interviews. The report also draws on participatory evidence-gathering workshops in Sellafield and Whitehaven in West Cumbria, UK (2022), Barsebäck and Malmö in Skåne, Sweden (2023) and Visaginas and Vilnius in Lithuania (2024).