Forever Chemicals
Abstract
When we think of violence, vivid images spring to mind — physical assault, domestic abuse, or military interventions and armed conflicts between groups or nations. These dominant representations typically connect to specific events, places, or people. In its most immediate manifestations, violence appears localized, sudden, and dramatic, leaving visible marks across landscapes, social structures, and human bodies. While these familiar images help us confront violent acts occurring worldwide, they are, in many regards, limited and often fail to capture forms of violence that manifest in less apparent ways.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of thousands of human-made chemical compounds, first developed in the mid-20th century and famously used in Teflon coatings for nonstick cookware. Due to their water- and oil-repelling properties, PFAS have become widespread in industrial applications and consumer products, including technical textiles, outdoor clothing, cosmetics, food packaging, and high-tech devices.
PFAS are not only toxic but also extremely persistent, earning them the name *forever chemicals*. Once released into the environment, they resist natural degradation processes and spread easily across the planet, traveling through air, water, and soil to reach even remote ecosystems.
Because PFAS are used in so many everyday items, human exposure to them is both frequent and difficult to avoid. They can enter the body through contaminated food, drinking water, particulate matter, or direct skin contact with PFAS-containing products. Once inside, PFAS accumulate in blood and various organs, where they are linked to a wide range of health effects, including hormonal disruption, immune system suppression, reproductive harm, liver and kidney damage, as well as various types of cancer.
In many cases, PFAS first enter the environment, contaminating water supplies, wildlife, and agricultural systems, before reaching the human body, making their toxic impact both obscure and insidious. Beyond being long-lasting and widespread, forever chemicals are invisible to the naked eye, making it more difficult to recognize them, acknowledge their impact on environments and bodies, and respond with adequate measures.
Our group project takes an experimental approach to address these characteristics that make PFAS difficult to perceive. Building upon nuclear semiotics, an interdisciplinary field studying long-term nuclear waste warning messages, we aim to explore ways to communicate the dangers of forever chemicals and their harm dispersed across the planet to future generations.
By developing a semiotic framework for PFAS that goes beyond visual imagery to include textural and sonic forms of signaling, we aim to create meaningful ways of communicating with future generations while simultaneously reflecting on our present circumstances.
This framework allows us to understand PFAS beyond a research topic, as a medium that transmits violence across multiple scales: from molecules to ecosystems, through environmental and more-than-human realms, affecting communities and bodies globally while linking present actions to both near and distant futures.
Extending from this conceptual point of departure, we undertook a more situated investigation into the lived and embodied dimensions of PFAS exposure, tracing how these forms of harm are distributed across and entangled within ecological, geopolitical, and economic systems. Individually, we began tracing the various forms of harm that PFAS have inflicted, and continue to inflict, on ecosystems and human bodies since their introduction in the mid-20th century. We examined their impact at the molecular level, the accumulation of toxins in specific organs, and the international dynamics of toxic waste exports from Europe to the Global South.
Our analysis also highlighted how racialised and marginalised communities are disproportionately affected by these increasingly regulated chemicals within the European Union. This disparity stands in stark contrast to the growing popularity of detox protocols, individualised responses that often obscure the systemic injustices tied to the exposure to these “forever chemicals.”
Building on this research, we developed initial prototypes that culminated in a short experimental film featuring a silicone mask, which became a focal point for our group. The speculative concept behind the mask emerged from our exploration of PFAS in cosmetics and makeup products, particularly how these chemicals expose the body to toxins that accumulate over time. Rather than allowing this accumulation to remain hidden inside the body, we sought to externalise it, making the toxic residue and its effects more visible and intelligible. By incorporating footage of the mask and its production process, we aimed to blur the lines between different forms of violence across scales, from molecular interactions and bodily harm to long-term environmental consequences.
