Just like the anti-tobacco campaigns of the late 20th century, doctors are sounding alarms about the health risks of poor air quality in our cities, and through Unmask My City – a new initiative developed by the Global Climate and Health Alliance and my organisation, the Global Call for Climate Action – are aiming draw attention to the public health crisis air pollution is driving.
My Fukushima and Chernobyl light painting photographic project is appearing in France’s Polka Magazine this month.
Forests make decontamination efforts difficult, as they not only slow progress, but they cannot simply be washed like buildings, or scooped up and replaced like soil. Forests accumulate and soak up radioactivity, and when they burn, they spread contamination over the landscape near and far. Fire is naturally a concern for Alexander Govorovskiy, legal councillor for the Zlynka forestry service, but it is the more human impacts that he is most interested in.
Natalya Rueva has lived in the village of Staryy Vyshkov for 25 years. She works in a small grocery store there, and has raised her family there, and done so despite there being a plan to relocate the people in the village since a resettlement law was passed in 1991.
Tatyana Dorokhova has been principal of the Starye Bobovichi school for eight years now. She was out of the area at University when the Chernobyl meltdown happened 30 years ago, but returned when the cleanup was being undertaken.
Seiki Sugano and Minako Sugano always wanted to raise their children in the mountains, so their house in Ryozen, Oguni, with its plum orchard in the hills around Fukushima was perfect. At least it was, until March, 2011.
The Sato family has lived and worked in Iitate for generations, but it is now one of the more contaminated areas in Fukushima.
For two decades, Ms Sadako Monma has run a small nursery school, Soramame (meaning Beans), in Fukushima. Everything changed for her after the meltdowns at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Thirty years after Chernobyl and five years after Fukushima, radioactive contamination continues to impact many communities, but as the source of the problem is invisible, the relative risks remain difficult to communicate. As a result, the motivation and urgency to help those affected continues to diminish. Photography exploring the impact of nuclear disasters typically focuses on portraiture of victims, on deserted landscapes, decaying buildings, or on measurement readings on technical equipment – all of which are useful, but abstract and […]
This video uses a new light painting method to explore the impacts of lingering radioactivity in Fukushima and Chernobyl-impacted Russia, on communities.
Inspired by the Immaterials project (https://vimeo.com/20412632) the process uses a custom-made LED stick, connected to a geiger counter, which shows radiation levels in the environment in real time. Coupled with a long camera exposure, we created ribbons of light around homes, businesses, and community areas in Japan and Russia.