“Before me a snow-covered bridge, the bluish evening light and wolf tracks, I have spent the past two days in the forbidden zone of Chernobyl. I didn’t want to come back here. I had spent too much time here between 2009 and 2011. Four months losing myself in this forbidden place that has fascinated me since my first trip here in 2001. I am drawn toward it and repulsed at the same time..
I see Piotr walking in the snow. He’s crossing the forbidden zone to steal contaminated metal. I hear Igor say, “I’ll be your shadow.” I see Larissa undressing in a hotel the Invankov hotel. I smell the alcoholic breath of the militia. “We were furious. If we had caught you in the zone, we would have had a reward.” I see Vladimir singing and making me drink till I’m sick. I see through the alcoholic fog a man get lynched. I hear his skull hitting the floor. I hear my radiometer cry out, telling me I cannot stay.
I can’t get Chernobyl out of my mind. And there’s this bridge, and the wolf tracks in the snow. There’s this deep dark water. The Uzh River. I have to go. A step too far, a shock, I feel the icy water and realize that the snow was covering a hole. My shin’s hurt, but it’s nothing serious, just fear. And the confirmation that my journey must come to an end.”
Guillaume Herbaut
La Zone
September 17 – October 26, 2012
Galerie du Collège Jacques Cartier
60 rue Ernest Renan
023000 Chauny
France
