Files on Air is a podcast series in which contributors from AA Files read their work. In this episode, David Burns – a writer and academic who leads the Media Studies programme at the Royal College of Art – travels to Maralinga in South Australia, where the British conducted secret nuclear testing in the 1950s and 60s. The text, and the photo essay that accompanies it, can be found in AA Files 78.

AA Files is the Architectural Association’s journal of record, which promotes original and engaging writing on architecture and its related fields. AirAA podcasts are recorded, mixed, edited and distributed from the Architectural Association School of Architecture, which is based in Bedford Square in London. Special thanks to Thomas Parkes for his contribution to the production of our episodes.