Chernobyl

With a simultaneous projection on four walls of images of the site of Pripyat, the Chernobyl “dormitory town” that was abandoned in the wake of the 1986 nuclear disaster, which are superimposed with images of fauna, the immersive work titled Chernobyl explores the theme of a man-made catastrophe and its impact on the natural environment.

American video artist Diana Thater relentlessly explores the tension between the natural environment and technological culture, the wild and the domestic, science and magic. To create this work, she went inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone to document the return of wild life in the town deserted by humans. “Chernobyl represents the failure of a massive political system, a way of life, and of science. Yet nature continues to persist. Not because it wants or chooses to, but because it must,” said the artist.

Testament to Diana Thater's artistic practice, Chernobyl, held in the Pinault Collection, was presented in the group show À Triple tour. Collection Pinault (“triple locked”) at the Paris Conciergerie, in 2013.