The Black Hole Store in New Mexico has been recycling ‘nuclear’ material for eons. That is to say, for years they have been selling obsolete material from the famous Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in the same state.
Los Alamos was set up by the American government after the Second World War. They built it deep in an isolated and unknown part of New Mexico, and it was there they developed the secret project ¨Manhattan¨. The laboratory is 70 years old this year and is still up and running. Rumours abound and according to some, the investigations being carried out involve nuclear waste, green energy and biological warfare. Or so they say...
In 1949, Ed Grothus, ¨Atomic Ed¨, started to work in the Los Alamos laboratory. He spent many years there but the Vietnam War troubled his conscious to such an extent that he gave up his job there. As was his inclination, he started to collect and keep old waste material discarded by the laboratory and had soon opened the shop The Black Hole. Ed Grothus died in 2009 and the character of and the raison d’être behind the shop began to wane.
Photographer Janire Najera discovered The Black Hole Store and created a collection of photographs of the material on the shelves and storerooms. The shop held a liquidation sale last year and she went along to photograph the last customers and the ¨atomic relics¨. This is the result.