[en] This presentation sketched how the United Kingdom's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) deals with its obligation of identification, storage, preservation, sharing and destruction of records related to the memory of the UK civilian nuclear industry. Based on the experience of the ongoing establishment of a National Nuclear Archive, the speaker reflected on who the main actors are and how they could contribute; to what extent their work should be co-ordinated; whether there are guidelines; whether 'stories' are being generated out of these archives for the benefits of all readerships; and whether there are issues of secrecy. It was highlighted that to successfully maintain the interest and the knowledge, it will be necessary to go beyond the technical and legislative areas and reach out to the wider society, for instance to the fields of education and culture

[en] The 'Great Hedge of India', a 3 700 kilometre-long hedge installed by the British customs to safeguard the colonial salt tax system and avoid salt smuggling totally faded from both memory and records (e.g. maps) in less than a century. Roy Moxham found traces of the hedge in a book footnote and searched it for several years until he found its meagre remains. The speaker wrote a book about this quest. He said that this story reveals how things disappear when they are no longer useful and, especially, when they are linked to parts of history that are not deemed particularly positive (the hedge was a means of colonial power)

[en] The Cumbrian Alchemy project explores issues emerging from an enquiry into convergent relationships among the nuclear and other energy industries, archaeological monuments and oral traditions of the North Lancashire and Cumbrian region in the north-west of England. Topically, it focuses on ideas of 'places of power', issues and discourse associated with hazardous industrial sites, long-term nuclear repositories, matters of 'deep-time' with respect to the recording and remembering of these repositories, language preservation and stewardship of the land. The project was supported by Arts Council England and the University of Cumbria

[en] In line with the RK and M initiative's glossary, the 'long term' was introduced as the period of time after repository closure with no repository oversight, extending over hundreds of thousands of years. Anne Claudel focused on the RK and M initiative findings regarding markers. She explained that, although they have often been presented as the main method to preserve memory and deter human intrusion, the RK and M literature survey on markers shows that there are no straightforward, conclusive answers to the objectives, messages and methods of marking. Even if they remain physically intact and traceable over time, future neglect or misunderstanding of their meaning cannot be ruled out. It was thus announced that the potential role of markers for RK and M preservation should be studied within a systemic approach to RK and M preservation. For instance, RK and M will investigate further the interaction of markers with other methods and tools, and the potential of internationally standardised markers

[en] In the Netherlands, the Central Organisation for Radioactive Waste (COVRA) is in charge of storing radioactive waste over a period of at least 100 years. After this period, deep geological disposal is planned. In order to make the waste management concept more visible and understandable, an art concept has been developed and implemented at HABOG (Hoogradioactief Afval Behandeling- en Opslag Gebouw - high-level radioactive treatment and storage building), which is COVRA's waste storage facility. Externally, the facility will be repainted in different and fading colours over the decades as a reminder of the radioactive decay of its contents. Collaboration with Dutch museums has also been established to use HABOG's space as storage for museum collections that are not currently on display. With the recent, planned extension of the facility, the art concept has been refined further, for instance by making use of the periodical incidence of natural light on the facility and by creating a watching ritual around it. Thus, Hans Codee outlined how the implementation of artistic and cultural mechanisms can add value to something (waste) that by definition has no value, and in the process keep memory alive

[en] Anna Storm, a scholar examining post-industrial landscapes, explained how abandoned industrial sites often carry a multitude of meanings, from pride to fear, from technological beauty to danger. After some time nature takes over these sites, either due to a conscious human strategy or as spontaneous overgrowth. Like scars, they ambiguously combine a variety of physical and mental properties. There is a thin line between 'healing' and 'concealing'; the presenter asked, for instance, how future generations will perceive a closed nuclear waste repository covered by forests. More generally, she encouraged reflection with regard to the potential heritage messages of post-nuclear sites, and proposed the mirroring of human nature interactions to articulate, over time, the message that 'something happened here'

[en] Heritage institutions, such as national archives, libraries, museums and monuments, face numerous challenges to their durability: political and geopolitical hazards (such as armed conflicts), natural hazards (such as floods), economic and social hazards (such as censorship and book burning) and everyday hazards (such as small-scale fires). For those running heritage institutions it is difficult to anticipate and adapt to these threats. However, a number of successful strategies to meet them and develop resilience have been formulated at the international (e.g. 1954 Hague Convention protecting heritage in times of war), national (e.g. guidelines to protect heritage sites from natural disasters) and local levels. Local communities and associations of heritage professionals appear to be of particular importance for contributing to the resilience and survival of these institutions

[en] Prof. Eleni Mitropoulou presented an ongoing study, undertaken on behalf of Andra, on long-term communication. The speaker highlighted that it is not so much the marking that needs to be sustainable, but above all what the marking communicates. She highlighted the importance of sustainable human action to produce memory and, thus, the need to reconcile the passive character of geological disposal and the active character of memory keeping. Focusing on semiotics, the interaction between the short, medium and long term was pointed out, highlighting the need to create a relay system. A multidimensional message was proposed, for the purposes of information ('storage site here'), interpellation (to warn, prevent or alert) and integration (with regard to the surrounding environment). This corresponds to the systemic approach of the RK and M initiative, which is based on a variety of RK and M transmission mechanisms that are integrated with and/or complement one another

[en] Prof. Peter van Wyck's lecture drew from Crutzen and Stoermer's concept of the Anthropocene and argued for its theoretical, practical, and rhetorical value with regard to the broad set of concerns that brought participants to Verdun. As an ontological claim, the Anthropocene offers a conceptual challenge to any meaningful distinction between 'human' and 'natural' history: the human and natural are globally merged like never before (referring to issues such as global warming, biodiversity, space debris, etc.). The Anthropocene is a new fundamental concept and a philosophical event. It marks, for instance, the time when we ask for consideration of time scales beyond anthropometric dimensions. Within the geological, social, and human sciences, one of the questions of the Anthropocene circles around when it would have started. There are various competing ideas about this. Some date it back to the acquisition of fire, others to the Industrial Revolution, and others to the great acceleration of science and technology in the mid-20. century. Nuclear energy has also been suggested as a signature. Overall, Prof. van Wyck suggested that the Anthropocene, as a kind of cultural memo, offers a moment in which cultural awareness around questions relating to nuclear energy may be broadened and enhanced

[en] The Preservation of Records, Knowledge and Memory (RK and M) across Generations initiative was launched by the Nuclear Energy Agency in 2011 to foster international reflection and progress towards this goal and to meet increasing demands by waste management specialists and other interested parties for viable and shared strategies. The RK and M initiative is now in its second phase, which is to last until 2017. Phase I culminated on 15-17 September 2014 with the organisation of an international conference and debate on 'Constructing Memory' held in Verdun, France. The conference was attended by approximately 200 participants from 17 countries and 3 international organisations. Participants included specialists from the radioactive waste management area and beyond, academics in the fields of archaeology, communications, cultural heritage, geography and history, as well as artists, archivists and representatives from local heritage societies and from communities that could host a radioactive waste repository. (authors)