ABOUT BOMBSHELLTOE
(Bomb shelter x "shelltoe" Adidas shoes)
Cultural collisions and community collaborations that
encourage nuanced understanding and responsible stewardship of our nuclear world.
Founded in 2013 after receiving the U.S. State Department Arms Control Verification Award, Bombshelltoe started as an educational website that uses iconic pop-culture references in film and television (Godzilla! The Simpsons! Practically every superhero movie!) to demystify technical concepts used in the nuclear policy field. It has since evolved into in-person and web-based projects featuring nuclear engineers, activists, historians, artists, designers, and other expertise to explore how nuclear issues touch our every day lives and intersect with urgent social issues.
Today, it is known within the nuclear policy field as an experimental playground that brings policy thinkers, creatives, and community advisers together to produce rigorously researched, multi-disciplinary works addressing the threat of nuclear weapons. Going beyond traditional policy reports and expert panels, Bombshelltoe presents arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament topics through creative writing, visual arts, and interactive media.
In 2020, Bombshelltoe assumed non-profit status and is fiscally sponsored by Fulcrum Arts.
Illustration credit: Lovely Umayam (2020), digital collage with creative commons / public domain images
Bombshelltoe is supported by nuclear security grants, art grants, and individual donations. Projects have received funding from:
Beyond Going Viral:
Finding Social Responsibility for the Atom
Feminism:
While there are more women working in the nuclear field than ever before, it is still difficult to fully eradicate the deep entanglement between nuclear weapons and the patriarchy, and the problematic gender norms that the field has historically adopted and continue to perpetuate, even subconsciously. Bombshelltoe is committed to practicing feminist foreign policy, as well as rooting out overt and subtle exclusionary practices that discourage, disenfranchise, and devalue women and gender non-conforming individuals who contribute their expertise in the field. It is not just about meeting the quota to achieve inclusion or diversity, but about changing expectations and culture within the workplace and among collaborations.
Anti-Racism:
Through the activism and writings of W.E.B Du Bois, Richard Wright, Malcolm X and the King family, civil rights and nuclear disarmament overlap as essential components of global human rights and peace. Furthermore, the threat of nuclear weapons has always intersected with the fight against racism and colonialism, since the production and maintenance of nuclear weapons has historically harmed and exploited black and brown bodies. Bombshelltoe is committed to an anti-racist approach in nuclear policy, beginning with full recognition of the harm done to people of color, and passing the mic to BIPOC experts who are best positioned to talk about the intersection of racism and nuclear politics.
Climate Change:
Rising sea levels are driving out Bikini Atoll islanders – the same people who were once displaced by U.S. nuclear tests. And there are many more groups around the world who are burdened by the lion's share of consequences inflicted by nuclear weapons and environmental injustice. Bombshelltoe is committed to reaching out and learning from frontline communities who suffer from the twin calamities of nuclear weapons legacy and climate change in order to find genuinely sustainable ways to protect the planet. Bombshelltoe does not believe in an "either/or" scenario between these two issues; they *both* must be addressed head-on in order to avoid apocalypse.
