PATRICK PENNEY is the first recipient of the SWERVE/Crawford College of Art Solo Exhibition Award and we are proud to be present his new work Installation ES 14/21 at SWERVE Project Space. After a very successful opening event on Culture Night 2025 the exhibition continues into October.
ARTIST INFORMATION
Patrick is an interdisciplinary artist based in Cork. Working in printmaking, photography, textiles, sound, installation and found object materials. He graduated with first-class honours in Fine Art BA in 2025,and was awarded a 12-month bursary at Cork Printmakers as well as beginning a Masters of Art in Contemporary Art Practice at MTU in September 2025.
EXHIBITION DESCRIPTION
The Installation ES 14/21 originated from research into William Penney. William Penney was a physicist and mathematician that worked on the Manhattan Project as well as working on the development of an atomic weapon for Britain. He also worked on creating the world’s first commercial nuclear reactor Calder Hall. In researching him and his work I discovered the scale of his involvement in the Manhattan Project and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was a member of the British Delegation and was a key contributor to the development of the atomic bomb as well as being part of the committee that selected targets to bomb. He was a scientific observer on board the B-29bomber nicknamed ‘Big Stink’ when the ‘Fat Man’ plutonium atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. He visited Hiroshima in the aftermath of the atomic bombing and this is where File ES 14/21originates from.
While in Hiroshima William Penney took photographs as well as made notes in order to calculate the yield of the atomic bomb that devastated the city. Upon returning to Los Alamos/the Manhattan Project site he gave a lecture to the other scientists on the destructive power of what they had collectively created. In his notes after witnessing the Nagasaki atomic bombing he wrote “ A new age has begun and we have contributed to a monster that will consume us all”.
Installation ES 14/21shows the destruction wrought by the bomb but also the details of what a scientist rather than a photographer thought was Important in demonstrating/illustrating the effects of the atomic bomb. The File ES 14/21: 32 Photographs of Hiroshima along with many others was classified until 2010 the photographs along with many other files were not available to the public and therefore contributed to a false narrative of the atomic bombings and the opinions of the people in the countries who developed them. Overall the goal is to ensure that nothing like this is allowed to happen again.