11:30 am today

Artist Yhonnie Scarce on the military tests that inflame her glass installations

From Nine To Noon, 11:30 am today
Yhonnie Scarce and examples of her work.

Photo: Portrait: : Janelle Low

From the mid-50s to early 1960s parts of Australia played host to the UK's nuclear ambitions.

It undertook twelve major nuclear weapons tests - some of which resulted in mushroom clouds up to 14-thousand metres high which blew radioactive dust across the country.

Most of the tests - including 200 minor trials -  were conducted the Maralinga site in South Australia.

And that's not far from where Yhonnie Scarce was born.

She's a contemporary artist of Kokatha and Nukunu peoples, renowned for her large-scale glass installations.

Her work is on display at The Dowse, with an exhibition called Night Blindness. It references what happened in South Australia and the impact it had on the Aboriginal communities there.