AIMEE LAX: RADIOACTIVE BOGLACH

Mission Gallery, Swansea

Until Sat 21 Mar

At some point in our lives, we all ask ourselves ‘what if?’ What if I won the lottery? What if I’d swiped right instead of left? What if Wales had won the Rugby World Cup, thrashing England 85-0 in the final? But for Aimee Lax, graduate of the Royal College Of Art and current Ceramics Lecturer at Stroud College, the hypothetical scenario was a far weightier one: what if radiation from nuclear warheads buried in the hills around Cove Park, Scotland should leak into the surrounding environment? What sort of organisms might such a disaster create? The results of her imaginative flight of fancy are presented in the timely, thought-provoking art exhibition Radioactive Boglach, coming to Swansea’s Mission Gallery as part of a UK-wide tour.

The impressive, visually arresting sculptures and ceramics on display toy with themes of attraction and repulsion, exploring the disturbing yet strangely fascinating effects that man-made substances wreak on the natural world. In an era of Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg and the devastating Australian bushfires, Lax’s artwork is both shocking and necessary: an important reminder of our need to protect wild flora and fauna from the fallout of our industrial ambitions. So, of all the questions to ask yourself this month, don’t let ‘what if I’d gone along to see Radioactive Boglach?’ be one of them.

Admission: free. Info: 01792 652016 / www.missiongallery.co.uk (RR)