Oct 29, 2015
A bigger-than-size statue of a horse wearing a hazmat suit is the subject of the October 29, 2015 edition of Tell Somebody. Author and professor Kristen Iversen and artist Jeff Gipe joined us on the phone to talk about it.
Rocky Flats, near Denver and Boulder, Colorado, was the site of a plant producing highly radioactive plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs since 1952. After major fires and other problems spread contamination over the site and the region, the plant was shut down and officials claim it is now cleaned up and safe. Until the installation of the Cold War Horse, nothing indicated that the plant, or the contamination, had ever been there. Iversen and Gipe will fill in some details about the site and the horse statue.
Jeff Gipe, an artist now living in Brooklyn, NY, grew up near Rocky Flats, and his father worked at the plant for 20 years. He created the Cold War Horse to mark the site of the plutonium plant and to serve as a memorial to those who worked at the plant.
Kristen Iversen author of Full Body Burden: Growing Up In the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats, and is a professor in the department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cincinnati where she will introduce a new PhD program in literary non-fiction. She is currently working on her next book, Strange Genius: The Curious Friendship of Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla.
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