University of Portsmouth Graphic Design student Bryony Nock has completed a fascinating, powerful series of images that address themes of nuclear destruction and decay. Bryony researched extensively into the history of the Trinity test and subsequent nuclear tests, focusing in particular on their environmental impact. Engaging directly with environmental issues (and histories of the nuclear mushroom cloud) Bryony used real mushrooms in the production of her prints. Covering them in paint, she repeatedly pressed them onto the paper, creating a series of striking, sometimes startling, images. As the paint wore off, the prints became increasingly blurred and frayed, as if we are witnessing the decay and disappearance of the mushrooms, or the land itself. The work can be viewed as a series, or as animated Gifs (see gallery above). 

Speaking about her work on the Trinity project, Bryony said: "We were told that this was the weapon that won the war. But we were never told the environmental impact of the Trinity test. The ground and the warm “snowflakes” that killed livestock and family pets, all accidents for the sake of war. When creating these postcards, I wanted to depict the decay and destruction the atomic bomb caused to the grounds of New Mexico and the aftermath to the civilians. I used different textures of concrete to make the postcards gritty as possible, like you are standing in the same desert the Trinity Test took place."