Chernobyl
Pecha Kucha Reviews
Thursday, June 4th, 2009 | decay, events, gallery, project wormwood, video | No Comments
Participating in Basel’s first Pecha Kucha Night was great. The PK rules – present 20 slides for 20 seconds each – impose a set of boundaries that makes presenting a completely different experience than your usual Powerpoint spiel: There’s just too much going on to have stage fright, it’s all about the excitement of making the most of the 20 x 20 seconds.
Pecha Kucha Daily has a nice overview with event photos about the evening.
I’m especially pleased with the great review the Tagesanzeiger, one of Switzerland’s biggest newspapers, wrote about the event and my presentation:
“He shows what probably no one in the audience – around 100 people – has ever seen: A deserted classroom, children’s respirators, an amusement park that was never used, the totally irradiated forest – everything in close proximity to the decomissioned reactor, deserted, in unbelievably warm colors, and at the same time icy cold in its mood. Suess manages to distract even the chatterers at the back of the room and make a big impact with his entertaining performance.” (translated from German)
If you haven’t seen the slide deck, here it is.
The next event is on October 22nd, again in “Unternehmen Mitte” in Basel. Put it in your calendars!
Chernobyl Journal #8: Pripyat Hospital
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 | decay, hdr, project wormwood, travel journal, video | No Comments
This is part eight of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.
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We spent most of the rest of the day in Pripyat’s north-east. The old Pripyat hospital was one of the biggest and most rewarding locations we visited. It consisted of five large buildings, about 6 stories high, all interconnected. The layout was rectangular so that one large corridor with rooms to each side lead through the whole length, flanked by two staircases at the side. In the middle of the buildings were open entrance areas, which seemed to have been used as common rooms or receptions. Almost every room was filled with medical equipment, from beds, cupboards, medicine bottles, autoclaves to whole operation rooms. › Continue reading
Chernobyl Pics Live at Pecha-Kucha Basel
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 | decay, exhibitions, project wormwood | No Comments
If you’re in Basel, Switzerland, tomorrow night, join us at “Unternehmen Mitte” in the city center for the first public presentation of my Chernobyl series. As part of Basel’s first Pecha-Kucha Night, I will be showing 20 chernopics, wrapped up in a short presentation.
What: Pecha Kucha Night
When: Thursday, 28 May, 20:20h
Where: Unternehmen Mitte, Gerbergasse 30
More info on the official website.
Update: Great event, lots of fun – thanks to all who cheered for me! You can see all the slides I showed in the respective exhibitions page.
Chernobyl Journal #7: Reactor Island
Sunday, May 24th, 2009 | decay, hdr, project wormwood, travel journal | 2 Comments
This is part seven of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.
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On the next day we got up at about 07:30, got dressed and had breakfast at the agency. The meal consisted of two courses: First, a plate full of pickled vegetables (along with the same meat from the day before). Second, a big chicken leg with a huge serving of tasteless, overcooked rice, which made me feel like the protagonist in “Everything Is Illuminated”. Half an hour later, we drove off north again.
The first few hours of the day were reserved for the area around the nuclear reactor. The Chernobyl power plant consisted of 6 reactors, two of which were never finished building. Those two (reactors 5 and 6) were located on an artificial island east of the power plant. › Continue reading
Chernobyl Journal #6: Pool & School
Monday, May 18th, 2009 | decay, project wormwood, travel journal, video | No Comments
This is part six of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.
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We waited for half an hour for Yuriy to come back – he had gone to the security perimeter to report the looters – until we took up Tanya’s offer of quickly going to “school #2″. The school, one of Pripyat’s seven schools, was supposed to be south of Lenin square. We followed her through the woods around old apartment blocks, came across an old electronics store with lots of old TVs, but didn’t find the school. › Continue reading
Chernobyl Journal #5: Amusement Park, or: Why You Shouldn’t Wander Off Alone
Sunday, May 10th, 2009 | artists, decay, hdr, project wormwood, travel journal, video | 5 Comments
This is part five of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.
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Because of our group member’s different paces and interests, we were rarely at the same spot at the same time (which helped to keep people out of your pictures). At the Palace of Culture however, we all got together again. And while René and Laura were busy rising a new FC Pripyat from the ashes of the gym, and Beat was still looking for good spots to shoot, I got into a conversation with our guide who was standing in front of the van, waiting for us. › Continue reading
Chernobyl Journal #4: The Buildings on Lenin Square
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 | decay, project wormwood, travel journal | 2 Comments
This is part four of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.
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After letting us get a first impression and pictures of the square, Yuriy showed us the way into one of the old apartment blocks. I must have accidentally wandered into the wrong building, because most of the rooms were empty – almost no furniture and no personal belongings apart from occasional books and papers on the ground. He also warned us not to spend too much time in these blocks, “not for physical danger, but for emotional danger”; as opposed to other areas in the city, I didn’t find the blocks especially depressing or unsettling, as they consisted of mostly empty rooms with similar layouts. › Continue reading
Chernobyl Journal #3: Red Forest and Pripyat Center
Saturday, April 25th, 2009 | decay, project wormwood, travel journal, video | 8 Comments
This is part three of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.
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Before going to the ghost city of Pripyat, our guide had some additional stops planned: Right and left in the empty fields small warning signs appeared, bearing the yellow and red sign of radioactive contamination. We were passing the highly contaminated Red Forest area west of the reactor. In 1986, all the trees were set ablaze by the accident – hence the name, Red Forest – and have later been buried in plastic wrap at special sites to protect the ground water. Once full of trees, Red Forest it is now a brown, bumpy landscape full of uncut grass.
The average radiation level in the field is around 50 uSv/h (300-500 times higher than normal) with pockets of up to 10 000 (50 000 – 100 000 times higher than normal). That’s where we stopped and got out of the car. › Continue reading
Chernobyl Journal #2: The road to Chernobyl
Sunday, April 19th, 2009 | project wormwood, travel journal, video | No Comments
This is part two of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.
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Our tour to Chernobyl was scheduled for Thursday and Friday.
Entry into the zone of exclusion is only allowed with proper authorizations and a tour guide. I was in contact with our guide Yuriy from the Chernobyl InterInform agency – that’s the official state authority – a couple of weeks before the trip and had arranged a 7:30 pickup from a street close to our apartment. I apparently woke him by a phone call at 7:15. “Yes, I will be there in 20 minutes”, he said, which our Riga colleagues translated as: “I will get out of bed now.” › Continue reading
Chernobyl Journal #1: From Basel to Kyiv
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 | project wormwood, travel journal | 2 Comments
Two weeks ago, I returned from my photo trip to Chernobyl and Pripyat. Since then, I have been working on initial versions of the photographs for publishing.
When I put my pictures online, I usually don’t add a lot of text and history to it. In the case of Chernobyl however, having the pictures speak for themselves wouldn’t do the trip nor location justice – there is too much to tell about the history and ambiance; for this reason, I will make the travel stories part of the publishing process.
Over the next couple of posts, I will illustrate the text from my “Chernobyl journal” with pictures, audio and video. So put on some sturdy travel shoes, fire up the Geiger counter, and follow me. › Continue reading
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