“Fallout” exhibition relates a complex narrative

“Fallout: the Mixed Blessing of Radiation and the Public Health” is the exhibition that opened on November 1 at Ebling Library for the Health Sciences.

Researched and assembled by Micaela Sullivan-Fowler, “Fallout” includes artifacts, journals, books, and other ephemera from Ebling Library’s Rare Books & Special Collections and materials from other campus libraries and UW’s Radiology Department.

The exhibition offers a unique opportunity to view these materials together – as Micaela’s statement notes, these are “small pieces of a remarkably big picture.” That picture is composed of disparate items, like a glass X-ray plate from 1914; a medical form used to track radiation treatments at the Institut du Radium – Paris; an image of a fish skeleton; a Popular Mechanics article from 1925, all of which come together to tell a complicated, multifaceted story of a problematic medical technology.

“Fallout: the Mixed Blessing of Radiation and the Public Health” is on display until April 1, 2013.

Further reading:

Radiation on display: Go Big Read exhibition showcases history of radiation, public health by Bennet Goldstein for the Badger Herald.