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Situated at the decommissioned Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, Scrubbing Hydra asks us to consider different types of power generation and how we might use the existing site materials - primarily contamination - to generate new forms of energy. Once a site of nuclear power generation, this project would use the pollutants left behind in the form of radioactive groundwater in order to power an algae system which seeks not only to produce energy, but also to emanate a strong light spectacle.

This system is complimented by an interweaving set of pipes that allow snails to travel between pipes, cleaning algae off of the glass and allowing it to continue to photosynthesize. The scrubbing system would function until all of the contaminated groundwater has been filtered out, at which point the ground would be converted into a gardenscape. Rather than hiding the nuclear threat, this project asks us to acknowledge it, eliciting the possibility of productive contamination, showing how it can still be harnessed for energy - hence the “hugging” orientation of the algae screens around the nuclear units.