[Audio Guide]
Large and heavy, this single volume book is a mere twenty pages. The title Heavy Water refers to the moderating material used in a nuclear reactor. The artist, Anselm Kiefer, took photographs of a mock nuclear reactor that he created in his own studio. Creating both negative and positive images from these photographs, he attached lead plates, silver leaf, and other materials, and combined them into this book. Through the process of creating the book the artist tried to deepen our understanding of how the invisible materials react and create energy. This work was made public in the year following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. After the Fukushima incident occurred in Japan in 2011, the weight of this heavy book has increased even further.
