Major Project by 3rd year student Adam Catling: Chernobyl

 

On arriving in Chernobyl I was overwhelmed by not only the bitter cold but the eerie silence, and majestic beauty. We were told in no uncertain terms to stick to the approved route as many areas particularly the woodland and cooling towers had never been decontaminated. Visiting an area of such devastation not only from the physical disaster of 1986 but by the political deceit that followed was more chilling than the -25 degrees celsius winter. The sheer presence of such massive constructions and the vast area of dereliction commands both respect and mourning for the impossible task of cleaning up such a disaster in conditions where remote control machinery was destroyed by the radiation. The 'bio-bots' that were brought in to take over known more commonly as humans, gave tremendous sacrifice to their long term health to not only cleanup such an atrocity, but to prevent it spreading. Little was it known that another explosion was narrowly avoided that would have rendered Europe uninhabitable. My images reflect my own impression at what greeted me 
when I arrived, and what will lay there silently for centuries after I departed.

Please come and see more of Adam's work and the work of all our graduating students at the Degree Show from the 13. - 22. June in the Ruskin building, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge