The Amsterdam photographer Eddo Hartman traveled to Kazakhstan several times. Atomic bombs were tested in this part of the former Soviet Union. Seventy years later, the area is still radioactively contaminated. Hartman managed to capture the pollution beautifully with an infrared camera. “The land has been sacrificed, as have the residents there.” Eddo Hartman’s photos can now be seen in Huis Marseille in Amsterdam.
Photos by Eddo Hartman – NH News
The Amsterdam photographer had already traveled to Kazakhstan several times to document the harmful consequences of nuclear tests during Russia’s Soviet period. He wanted to expose the fact that the earth and its inhabitants are often treated irresponsibly. It is about sacrificed land. That is also the title of this exhibition The Sacrifice Zone. “Recently, areas have been sacrificed by companies such as Shell for oil extraction. At first I thought I would visit all these sacrificed areas,” says Hartman. “But then I thought, I’m going to the very first, iconic sacrifice zone in the world and that was the area in Kazakhstan. There it turned out that the Soviets had set up a huge open-air laboratory there in the 1940s to test atomic bombs.”
Infra-red
Hartman traveled to the area in Kazakhstan several times. He spoke to residents there and also photographed them. Scientists, farmers, vagabonds, scrap metal thieves and guards. Hartman took photos of these people in desolate landscapes and ruins. Yet he was still not completely satisfied. Until he heard from scientists that they use infrared cameras for research on plants. “Then I started taking photographs with an infrared camera and the result was astonishing,” says Hartman. “Everything that was radioactively contaminated in the landscape glowed red-orange. So I didn’t use it as an aesthetic trick but purely functional to expose the diseased earth.”
Symbol
In the exhibition we not only see the diseased landscape, but also the consequences 70 years later for the people who remained there. Hartman befriended an artist who was born without arms. “He paints with his feet and his mouth. There is also a painting of his here in the exhibition,” says Hartman. “He has become the symbol of victimhood, but at the same time he tries to make something of it.”
Radioactivity
When asked whether it was not very dangerous for Eddo himself to walk around and take photographs there several times, he responds quite laconic. “If you enter that area, you have to wear a white suit. That protects you against the dust. You don’t breathe it in and you don’t take it home with you. It doesn’t protect you against radiation in itself,” says Eddo. “But I would never do irresponsible things, I don’t want to do that to my family and friends.”
The exhibition The Sacrifice Zone, with photographs by Eddo Hartman, can be seen until February 25 at Huis Marseille in Amsterdam.
Culture Club at NH News
Culture Club is the weekly culture program of NH Nieuws. Reporters Roos Elkerbout and Ron Flens visit artists, bands, theater makers and writers to gain insight into what is happening culturally in our province.