Chernobyl focus

A UNIQUE perspective on the lives of people in Chernobyl and the work of the Burren Chernobyl Project, is set to be unveiled next month with the launch of a photographic exhibition marking the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
Maurice Gunning, photographer in residence at the Irish World Academy and whose family are from Scariff, spent some time in Belarus last year with the Burren Chernobyl Project. While there, he visited a number of adult institutions, and the resulting intimate images form the basis of the exhibition The Lives of Others, which opens in Glór on April 14.
Musicians John Spillane and Juliet Turner will play a concert in the Ennis venue following the launch in support of the Burren Chernobyl Project.
Recalling how he first got involved with the project, Maurice tells us, “Brian O’Sullivan from the Burren Chernobyl Project asked me if I would be interested in doing some work with the project over there. He knew my photographic work from the Irish World Academy, that it’s not intrusive and it’s more documentary and reflective. We met several times to talk about what they were looking for, looking at the different types of aid photography that have been done over the years. And we felt that with the 25th anniversary coming up, it would tie in very well.”
Maurice has travelled the world for work, including spending time in Chile doing a documentary on the Chilean miners which is currently in post production in Sydney. He has also exhibited in Buenos Aires and Athens, amongst other locations, so finding the right time to go to Belarus was critical.
“I was going to Buenos Aires at the end of August last year, then I was going to Chile so we didn’t have much time to get ready. So just a week before I went to Argentina, we flew to Minsk.”
With a limited amount of time to shoot, and in the hot August sun, Maurice admits the initial few days were tough.
“It was a very intensive schedule. We’d get up and travel for hours to each institution. For the first few days, I very much questioned what I was doing there. Then one day, I remember, I was in one institution in particular and everything totally overwhelmed me and I had to leave the building, I was feeling very nauseous. I was standing in the shade of a tree, trying to catch my breath, when a very large patient came up to me and stood in front of me wanting his photograph taken. I thought to myself, if they are enjoying it and they see something positive in what we are doing, then that gave me the strength and enough purpose and vision to continue and to start enjoying it.”
Each day Maurice, along with members of the Burren Chernobyl Project and a local translator, would travel to a number of institutions to photograph.
“I was granted total photographic freedom within the institutions, which over there is particularly rare,” he tells us.
He explains that with this project, he wanted to show something different to the usual images associated with Belarus. “There have been documentaries made that highlight generally the negative, or the most graphically disturbing images, but you can do that in any city in the world and we didn’t want to do that. That type of aid photography has passed its date. We would go through the institution and look at the work that had been carried out using money raised by the Burren Chernobyl Project and also work done by volunteers out there. They were quite proud to show us what had been done and also they showed us what needed to be done,” he explains.
This exhibition is particularly unusual, as its focus is on adults rather than the children of Chernobyl. “The adults are there as well and are possibly the bigger story and I believe with adults you have more of an affinity. The work just naturally went towards the adults and the different types of people in the institutions there varies incredibly.
“One institution may have several hundred people living in it, some who would find it difficult to survive outside of the institution because of their intellectual disability; others who would have very minor intellectual disabilities and if they were living in our country would possibly be in a community care or day care setting. Others have physical disabilities. They don’t have alternative places to go, all of these different people are in the one institution,” he explains.
He spoke about the process of taking the patients’ photographs. “I would ask the people if I could take their photograph and they would pose. But when I say pose, I mean they would sit in their chair, that they would have already been sitting on. Nothing was set up for the photographs, but they would be very much aware that the photo was being taken. They would engage with me and the camera in a very traditional, old style way, sitting very still and looking directly at me which meant that we got some very intimate and evocative images.”
The exhibition in Glór will be launched by Teresa Flynn, who is no stranger to Belarus or the valuable work of the Burren Chernobyl Project. Teresa, from Miltown Malbay, spent many years in Belarus caring for her beloved Sergei. She first met Sergei in Cherven orphanage when he was five years of age and weighed only 11 pounds. She brought him to Ireland in 1999 where he was cared for by the retired nurse. Sadly, the little boy who touched the lives of so many passed away in 2007 at just 12-years-old.
The exhibition will also be brought to Minsk later in the year to be opened by the Irish Ambassador to Belarus.
Meanwhile, a separate exhibition of photographs taken by Maurice on Irish traditional boating heritage will be launched in the Hunt Museum on April 7.