M HKA Ensembles

Object, 16 x 31 x 11 cm.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp.

MK-3 Mark-3 "Fat Man" Nuclear Bomb Dropped on Nagasaki [title given by Allan Sekula], Filipino manufacturer, mahogany wood model, production date unknown (probably circa 2010). [Allan Sekula – The Dockers' Museum, 2010-2013, object nr. 54]

This Mahogany-model of the ‘Fat Man’-bomb was made on order by a small woodworking atelier in the Philippines, in a sort of hideous way, there is something about the wood, a strange material. The Philippines is a country that basically exports its labor power in the form of sea farers and women who work as domestics in rich countries. The local industries are still in this kind of artisanal mode; one of the things they are specialized - because of their wealth in hard woods – are models of things. So if a business executive wants to have a particularly threatening object on his desk he can order a replica of an American, Soviet or French nuclear bomb. You can have any bomb. This was shipped to Sekula in a box, it took several months, and then it comes in a cardboard box, passes through the US customs and outside of the box it says ‘contents: one nuclear bomb’; it was never opened by security, never touched. Sekula thinks that the box should be a part of the museum.