The Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959, produced by the United States Strategic Air Command (SAC) in 1956 and published by the National Security Archive at George Washington University in 2015, is the most comprehensive record of Cold War nuclear targets ever declassified. Spanning over 800 pages, this document lists the coordinates of more than 4,500 nuclear targets across the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe.

I travel to the nuclear targets in China identified by the SAC in 1956, documenting these sites through photography and creating radioactive uranotypes using the uranium printing process. Many of these sites have undergone dramatic transformation: the once-abandoned Shougang Steel Mill in Beijing became the Big Air venue for the 2022 Winter Olympics; warehouses, airport hangars, and fuel tanks along Shanghai’s Huangpu River now house contemporary art galleries and museums; coal mines in Fushun and Dayu have been repurposed into educational and recreational zones. These seemingly mundane landscapes are, in fact, sites marked by deep historical trauma—legacies of imperialism, Cold War tension, and China’s evolving identity.

Number of nuclear targets photographed: 48 of 368 (as of March 23, 2025).