Hana Vojackova, Chernobyl: Red Balloon 86, 11 Mansfield St | reviews, news & interviews
Hana Vojackova, Chernobyl: Red Balloon 86, 11 Mansfield St
Hana Vojackova, Chernobyl: Red Balloon 86, 11 Mansfield St
Walk through Chernobyl: a visual reinterpretation of an idealised Soviet documentary from 1986.
Monday, 15 March 2010
An abandoned classroom in a school in ChernobylPhoto by Hana Vojackova
A 1986 documentary about the USSR’s new modernist city, Chernobyl, featured a five-year-old boy kicking a football through landscaped gardens, past blocks of clean, elegant flats and inside the soon-to-be opened funfair in the workers' town of Pripyat. A brilliant propaganda tool for the new status symbol Nuclear Power Plant, the film was intended to convey the message around the Soviet empire that the nuclear age implied a safe, happy future. The film was never shown; three weeks later, the plant exploded in the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster and Chernobyl’s almost 40,000 inhabitants were evacuated after two days. Hana Vojackova, a Czech photographer and film-maker working in London, was also five years old at the time of the accident. Last November, she visited Chernobyl to tell a story about a story in danger of being forgotten.
A 1986 documentary about the USSR’s new modernist city, Chernobyl, featured a five-year-old boy kicking a football through landscaped gardens, past blocks of clean, elegant flats and inside the soon-to-be opened funfair in the workers' town of Pripyat. A brilliant propaganda tool for the new status symbol Nuclear Power Plant, the film was intended to convey the message around the Soviet empire that the nuclear age implied a safe, happy future. The film was never shown; three weeks later, the plant exploded in the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster and Chernobyl’s almost 40,000 inhabitants were evacuated after two days. Hana Vojackova, a Czech photographer and film-maker working in London, was also five years old at the time of the accident. Last November, she visited Chernobyl to tell a story about a story in danger of being forgotten.
He carried a gun at all times to protect her from the wolves now inhabiting the city, but not a Geiger counter to protect her from the pockets of high radiation
Explore topics
Share this article
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more Visual arts
Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920, Tate Britain review - a triumph
Rescued from obscurity, 100 women artists prove just how good they can be
Brancusi, Pompidou Centre, Paris review - a sculptor's spiritual quest for form and essence
The Paris landmark signs off with a historic survey
Expressionists: Kandinsky, Münter and the Blue Rider, Tate Modern review - a missed opportunity
Wonderful paintings, but only half the story
Eye to Eye: Homage to Ernst Scheidegger, MASI Lugano review - era-defining artist portraits
One of Switzerland's greatest photographers celebrated with a major retrospective
Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a multi-media artist
Melanie Manchot's debut is strikingly intelligent and compelling
Fantastic Machine review - photography's story from one camera to 45 billion
Love it or hate it, the photographic image has ensnared us all
Yinka Shonibare: Suspended States, Serpentine Gallery review - pure delight
Weighty subject matter treated with the lightest of touch
Jane Harris: Ellipse, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux review - ovals to the fore
Persistence and conviction in the works of the late English painter
Sargent and Fashion, Tate Britain review - portraiture as a performance
London’s elite posing dressed up to the nines
Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles, Whitechapel Gallery review - a disorientating mix of fact and fiction
An exhibition that begs the question 'What and where is home?'
Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, Tate Modern review - a fitting celebration of the early years
Acknowledgement as a major avant garde artist comes at 90
Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, Barbican review - the fabric of dissent
An ambitious exploration of a neglected medium
Add comment