CHERNOBYL HERBARIUM

2011 - ongoing
Location: Exclusion Zone, Chernobyl, Ukraine_Radiation level: 1.7 Ms/ hour
37 Rayograms, 24x36 cm, Pigment Print on RAG Paper

TCHERNOBYL HERBARIUM

2011- en cours
Zone d'exclusion, Tchernobyl, Ukraine – Niveau de radiation: 1.7 microsieverts/h
37 rayogrammes, 24x36 cm, Impression pigmentaire sur papier RAG

On Saturday, April 26th, 1986, at 1:23:58 a.m. local time, a test in Chernobyl nuclear plant takes a disastrous turn. The core of reactor No.4 explodes, emitting a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and drifted across the then Western Soviet Union and Europe.

This project is composed of a rayogram per year passed since the explosion, created by the direct imprint of specimens from a radioactive herbarium on photosensitive plates. These plants grew in the soils of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, studied by the team of bio genetician Martin Hajduch who analyzes the impacts of radioactivity on the flora.

As with other projects, she draws on the fragility of the beginnings of photography, especially contact photography. In the Chernobyl Herbarium, the images are realized by means of a traditional rayogram process, yet the cesium-137 and strontium-90, which innervate the plant, contribute to the creation of its imprint on the photosensitive plate. These radioactive rayograms are thus kept in a lead box stored in the basement of a laboratory.

Material traces of an invisible disaster, these images are captured on the edge of the visible. Alongside, 37 fragments of texts by philosopher Michael Marder, they invite to reflect upon, signify, and symbolize it, taking stock of the consciousness the accident fragmented and, perhaps, cultivating another, more environmentally attuned way of living.