Atomic Ed' tells the story of Ed Grothus (1923-2009), a nuclear technician at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1950s and 1960s who became the owner of a surplus store which he used as a base for anti-nuclear activism. It includes archival documents, vintage and recent photographs, and a selection of letters between Grothus and politicians, scientists, journalists and relatives.
Founded by the U.S. Government during the Second World War, Los Alamos was selected to be the site of the top-secret Manhattan Project because it is so remote. It was here that scientists were able to harness the power of the atom, developing and deploying the atomic weaponry used at Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Throughout the years the lab has continually updated its infrastructure and replaced obsolete equipment, holding regular surplus and salvage sales to dispose of unwanted stock. A great deal found its way into The Black Hole, where visitors were presented with an astonishing array of scientific and electronic equipment, anonymous instruments, circuit boards, tools, hardware, furnishings and Cold War relics. For this series people who came to the final sale were photographed with the objects they purchased. The objects that appear in the images were selected from random shelves of different sections of the store.