Anna Burns and Michael Bodiam make nuclear bombs cutesy in new series

Anna Burns is a set designer with a taste for the ambitious. Who could forget her work with Thomas Brown where they created B-Movie inspired installations out of flammable umbrellas? For her latest work Anna has collaborated with Michael Bodiam on a series inspired by nuclear catastrophe and our contradictory attitudes towards it – apocalyptic fear on the one hand and weird fascination on the other.

“A rampant, self-perpetuating thirst for gore and mass-destruction still runs rife among the mass media and begs plenty of questions about our appetite for the mystery and mayhem of modern combat,” the artists say. “Are we hungry, enthralled or just anaesthetised?”

By creating hobby craft versions of nuclear mushroom clouds using marbles, flowers, balloons and the like, the talented pair have created a series which is uncomfortably charming. There’s no trickery here; these were created in camera and are all the more impressive because of it.