Igor Kostin, Russian, 1936-2015
27 April, 1986, 1986
Only 14 hours after the meltdown at Chernobyl, Igor Kostin took a series of photos of the site. However, all but one was destroyed by radiation exposure. This one surviving photo gives a view of the destroyed reactor as seen through a small helicopter window. The photo is exceedingly grainy, blurring the local town of Pripyat. The foggy photo is a result of lingering radiation from the site, despite the fact that it was taken inside a helicopter, 650 feet away. Kostin, who received no official or state approval to take this photo, simultaneously documents the destruction of Chernobyl for the future and shares the story in the present, making public the immediate physical disaster and alluding to the more pervasive disaster of invisible radiation. Label by Caitlin Blomo