Jay Needham will invite you to travel back to the 1940's through his personal collection of archival recordings that his grandfather made as a hobby with his Soundscriber dictation machine.

Narrative Half-Life is a continuing series of sound recordings about Hanford that co-mingle and complicate family histories. Jay heard these family histories from his grandfather, Lt. Colonel William Sapper—who was a Manhattan Project engineer—and from his mother, Lynn Needham, who grew up in Richland during the Second World War.

In Jay's presentation, he'll share how the war-era history of Richland played a defining factor in the paths he would take in life and in his artistic career. A highlight of his presentation will include songs that his grandfather's colleagues wrote that feature lyrics about creating plutonium and life in Richland, two years before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Jay’s grandfather also documented original jazz music, limericks, and labor poems, as well as conducted interviews and recorded regional radio broadcasts.

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Jay Needham is an artist, musician, researcher, writer-editor and cultural producer who utilizes multiple creative platforms to produce his works, many of which have a focus on sound and site specific field research. As a hearing-divergent person, Needham explores present and emerging ecologies of the electromagnetic spectrum that often feature the sense of sound and vibration as a component in the interpretation of his works. His sound art, productions for radio, visual art, performances and installations have appeared at museums, festivals and on the airwaves, worldwide. His most recent sound installation is on permanent display in the BioMuseo, designed by Frank Gehry in The Republic of Panama.

The Nuclear Waste Scholar Series is funded through a Public Participation Grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology. The content was reviewed for grant consistency, but is not necessarily endorsed by the agency.