Pechblende (Chapter 1)

I had lunch with Emma in the Bistro Venla, then we visited Photographic Centre Nykyaika. There is one of Backlight 2023 Photo Festivals exhibition: Susanne Kriemann's  Pechblende (Chapter 1).

Pechblende investigates concepts of scale, proximity and distance in relation to radioactivity and the body. Centred on the mineral Pechblende (the German word for a type of uraninite), the work traces a history of scientific and photographic processes narrated through the interconnected sites of laboratory, archive, museum and mine. Highly radioactive and rich in uranium, Pechblende was relentlessly mined in the Ore Mountains of the former German Democratic Republic between 1946 and 1989, ultimately facilitating nuclear armament in the USSR. Despite the toxicity of the mines, and the documented health threats to the miners who worked there, the landscape of the Ore Mountains is now under way to being transformed into a tranquil mountain vista, with few recognizable traces of the still-radiating industrial worksites.




+18,2  °C, cloudy and rainy