Chernobyl 1 - the Wheel of Pripyat

The first print of the Chernobyl suite shows the ferris wheel of Pripyat, which has become a sort of icon for incident’s impacts. The town of Pripyat had been founded in 1970 as nuclear city for the Chernobyl plant. Two days after the explosion  53,000 people already contaminated were evacuated with the information of a possible return after some days. This ghost town now has become a famous place to visit, and numerous fotos and protocols are available (pripyat.com). The wheel has been said to never have been in operation and for me has always been associated with the site.

(found at fuckyeahabandonedthemeparks.tumblr.com-pripyat6).

I found the rusty steel with the yellow nacelles fascinating in view of the radiation symbol.

The linoprint approach with reference to the reductive approach offers some interesting aspects.  The iron construction details go beyond the resolution of the printing approach, see here a detail of a polycount construction by aranis and the drawing on the linoplate.

So cutting lines is a simpler path compared to leaving ridges. This resembles Picasso’s white on black prints end oft he 50s:

Cutting is done as drawing, but in the relief technique like wood or linocut the traditional drawing dark on light background needs printing light on dark.  This seems an enormous waste of printing colour but offers unique results, left alone printing noncovering white on black

It also permits the later introduction of background as a final step

So rust-like brown printed on yellow may resemble ferric oxide breaking through the yellow paint. 

At the same time a yellow background only incompletely covered by the follow-up print resembles radiating fallout particles. Likewise rust particles blown away also resemble loose fallout. 

A first set of prints used a blue background. The yellow colour together with blue resembles the ukrainian flag. At the time of the incident the plant was integrated in the soviet union, with white-blue-red as russian colours. The red is often dark or disappears giving rise to brown rust. The block lettering PRIPYAT is a prominent construction in the city, it has thus been added in russian colours.

The blue top plate is added in various tones, depending on the intensities of the brown backgrounds.

As in the Fukushima series the top MAGIC PLACES uses ffMark,a geometric type.

The first idea of showing the wheel integrated in the Pripyat surrounding has been abandoned, as the symbolic wheel is not fixed but free to be anywhere.  

This has been an idea of Brian Duggan constructing a highly detailed model (first shown in Dublin 2011, http://www.brianduggan.net/bd/home.html):

The free flying wheel not operating as meant to do with its radiation symbols may thus represent the state of atomic energy production with its unsolved problems for present and future generations, as one single project:   the Chernobyl sarcophagus (shelter project).

Printing of the first set starts with a yellow square, and the first plate is added in brown

In a second printing this plate is set directly in black on white paper

Followed by a white plate, and yellow colouring

In a third approach the final plate is inked in sky and earth tones, the bottom lettering in red

 

This printing type gives a feeling of the wheel in space.

Fukushima 4

The Manga culture ("whimsical drawings" or "impromptu sketches") can be traced to the early 8th century, the modern types of publications developed since the end of world war II. The impact of style, especially present in animation is maybe comparable to the influence of japanese prints end oft he 19th century.  The images are in some way representative for the young  japanese, and the idea followed in this piece has been to remind on the situation following the destruction of life quality after Fukushima. Starting point has been Picasso’s portrait linos from the early 60s, here L’espagnole.  In the reduction approach a beige background is applied, and two plates brown and black are used.

The present manga style is indeed representative for some japanese girls. This extends in its global extension to export of the styles (Japan pop culture festivals), http://cyberpopculture.wordpress.com/fashion/japanese-culture-japanese-fashion-tokyo-and-the-individual-selfishness/:

Even stories in brown tones exists, resembling Picasso’s prints:

http://animemanga4all.blogspot.de/2010_12_01_archive.html

As the major impact of the Fukushima event is uncontrolled leaking out of radioactive material contaminating local sites and extending worlwide. Facing invisible radiation the trefoil symbol (Berkeley 1946) is well known, and has been amended in 2007 by an additional symbol indicating the risk of death,  with the option of running away…

The design started with a girl’s face, trefoils and the japanese word for „radiation“

on a beige background the face is printed in brown and dark brown. Alternatively the two plates are printed on light brown paper.

 

 Instead of a third dark plate a gradient inking from blue to red is preferred, as it indicates radiation from above, and the blue colour relates to the marine costume.

The intention is to remind on the responsibility for the young generation forced to live with radiation.

Fukushima 3

In 1979 the renowned manga artist Shigeru Mizuki  (*1922, he designed a Hitler biography in 1971)

produced a set of illustrations on the harsh working conditions at the Fukushima power plant (The reality of subcontract workers). The infos came from Kunio Hori, and the material was published by Asahi Graph (http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201206090008). Replicas were exposed 2012 at the Maruki gallery for the Hiroshima panels (http://www.aya.or.jp/~marukimsn):

Radiation protection suits now termed NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) suit or bunny suit, are well known since the various contamination episodes with nuclear materials, earlier episodes due to gas warfare, and more recently to biohazards from natural or synthetic infectives. They are included in various games, just that people get used to them as early as possible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_suit).

  A special type is the space outfit, the astronaut, here in a 1962 silkscreen by the Berlin artist Werner Mühlbrecht (*1930), looking determined for actions in a space lab or going to the moon, a sort of hero. Werner taught me drawing in space. 

 Now think of the hundreds and thousands of workers involved in moving contaminated materials as in Chernobyl, Fukushima, Los Alamos and all the sites on earth remaining contaminated. See here some recent pics from the Fukushima site used for the lino.

The plant and the counter have been omitted for a more universal approach.

The drawing shows that reflections in the helmet’s glass and the contours are the main elements. 

In the colour reduction a question has been the face underneath the reflections. Two variants have been tried, either with or without background colour. Both seem possible.

The contour plate has been inked with a gradient.

 

 Printing on a second colour provides the opportunity to indicate structures related to particles again related to contamination.