RA Gallery presents

 

People of Chernobyl 1986–1998

 

Viktor Marushchenko (1946–2020)

25.09-08.10.2026

 

Starting on May 8, 1986, Ukrainian photographer Viktor Marushchenko spent two decades documenting the aftermath of the Chernobyl tragedy.

Marushchenko documented not the disaster itself, but its consequences - and above all, the people whose lives were forever linked to Chernobyl. Liquidators, displaced persons, residents of contaminated territories, workers, scientists, and other people who lived in the reality created by the man-made disaster.

In 2001, at the invitation of curator Harald Zeeman, Marushchenko participated in the main exhibition of the 49th Venice Biennale with his series "Chernobyl".

"People of Chernobyl" is a new reading of Viktor Marushchenko's photographic archive, carried out by his son Yuriy Marushchenko with the help of photographer Valery Miloserdov.

The exhibition tells about the photographer's work as a researcher of new social groups in Ukrainian society that spontaneously emerged in response to one of the largest man-made disasters in human history. About life that continued alongside an invisible threat. About memory that does not disappear over time, but changes form.

The visual series of the exhibition consists of black and white photographs, personally printed by the master during his lifetime.

Forty years after Chernobyl, these photographs speak not only of the past. They continue to raise questions about what happens to people and society after the disaster.

 

RA Gallery

B. Khmelnytskyi, 32

ragallerykyiv.com