Avec le soutien du Fonds d'art contemporain de la Ville de Genève (Fmac)
Photographs by Guillaume Briquet
After the sad day in spring 1986, the Chernobyl catastrophe is a part of the dark periods of our history. Not in any glorious sense. But as a terrifying stigma that is passed - and will long continue to be passed - from generation to generation.
The Lenin Nuclear Power Station was intended to be a symbol of a bright future promised to "new man" in a "new world". It was a manifestation of mastery and power, an emblem for all of Soviet Russia. What was being built was thus in effect a kind of "radiant city" in which to accommodate the power station workers. The town of Pripyat should have been the very embodiment of the virtues and triumph of communist modernism in the domain of day to day social and family life. A city in which anyone would have loved to have had the privilege of living.
On the Thursday of 26 April 1986, at the very moment when the core of one of the four reactors was starting to melt down, setting in motion what was to be the greatest ever nuclear catastrophe, 900 pupils aged between 10 and 17, were taking part in a "marathon for peace" to be run in the perimeter surrounding the power station... as though nothing were happening, since the authorities had not seen fit to warn the population. It was not until the next day that the 50,000 inhabitants of Pripyat City - the first to be affected by the outflow of radiation that had been sweeping over the zone for twenty-four hours - were invited to bring only the strictest minimum essential personal effects with them for an evacuation, which was not supposed to last, as they were promised, more than a few days, time enough for things to return to normal...
We know what did in fact happen next. But do we know the detail of the actual consequences? How many died? How many lives were irretrievably affected? The actual geographical reach of the harmful effects of the radioactive exhalation of the Lenin Nuclear Power Station?
The official "facts" are mutually contradictory. There is still uncertainty about the true human scale of this catastrophe. All that is certain is that Chernobyl opened up the gates of nuclear hell. Nobody knows if or when they will close.
This is why Chernobyl is now part of our tragic history. Twenty-five years on, the warning is even more pressing than ever: mankind can turn its dreams into a living nightmare. All we can do is cultivate the duty of remembering, in the hope that in the memory of this catastrophe can be forged the aspiration for greater clarity and vigilance in the choices to which future generations will be committed.
This could be the message of the exhibition "Chernobyl, 25 years on".
Pierre Maudet
Executive Councillor, City of Geneva
Patrice Mugny
Executive Councillor, City of Geneva
