Design Map · Eindhoven
Tracing Hot Particles: A Matter of Time
Graduation project by Louella Exton at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
‘Tracing Hot Particles’ is a collection of warning signs used to trace ‘hot particles’: radioactive remnants of the British nuclear weapons testing programme conducted on stolen Maralinga land in South Australia (1952–1963). Reimagined as mediating devices between humans and contaminated ground, the signs collect, generate and present geo-spatial information. Retroreflective film, a highly engineered material designed for maximum visibility, is utilised to map and reconstruct fragments of colonial toxicity.
Conceived as an alternative report format, the project curates a growing body of information, engaging with the site’s inaccessible material archive through dispersed contemporary digital data. As nuclear technologies seem to regain political and cultural traction, Louella Exton calls for greater transparency around the persisting legacies of colonial toxicity, framing hot particles not as residues of the past or conditions of the future, but ultimately as a current matter of time.