Welcome Remarks: Dr. Carola Brückner, District Councillor for Culture Dr. Jens-Ole Rey, Artistic Director of Galerie Bastion Kronprinz
Introduction: Ulrike Euteneuer, Co-Curator and Research Associate
On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered what remains the worst-case accident in the history of civilian nuclear energy. Nearly ten years later, in 1995, the German Hygiene Museum Dresden commissioned photographer Volker Kreidler to document the consequences of the catastrophe for people, places, and nature. In 2015, the photographer returned to the exclusion zone to capture, through his camera, nature’s gradual reclamation of the area in the near-total absence of human activity. In 2025, Volker Kreidler travelled once again to Kyiv; the resulting photographs bear highly contemporary witness to the political realities of present-day Ukraine. At the centre of the 2025 works is the resilience of the people of Kyiv and the exclusion zone, particularly under the conditions imposed by Russia’s war of aggression.
The exhibition Half Life Chornobyl at Bastion Kronprinz, Zitadelle Spandau, presents this long-term project in a comprehensive form: as a manifesto visualising the limits of control within our highly technologised world. From the permanent invisible threat of radiation and systemic corruption to escalation through acts of war, Kreidler’s images demonstrate that the risks associated with nuclear power are never static, but assume unpredictable dimensions, especially in times of crisis.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Volker Kreidler (*1962) has devoted his photographic work to exploring Eastern Europe. His practice engages with the tensions between rapprochement with the West and the related challenges concerning democracy, education, human rights, and interpersonal relationships.
Image: Graphic design by arc-gestaltung, Berlin, using Kyiv 1995 by Volker Kreidler.
