Book Review: Svalbard – An Arcticficial Life by Julia de Cooker

Posted on September 24th, 2017 by Hans Durrer

Nick’s Limo @ Julia de Cooker

Svalbard – An Arcticficial Life by Paris-based Julia de Cooker, born 1988, a French/Dutch photographer, educated at ECAL, the School of Art and Design in Lausanne, Switzerland, portrays an archipelago in the very north of mainland Europe.

According to Wikipedia, Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, about midway between continental Norway and the North Pole, was until 1925 known by its Dutch name Spitsbergen.

What do people do in such a remote place? How do they make a living? When, in 1596, the Dutch seafarer Willem Barentsz arrived at these islands, they became an international whaling base and also a point of departure for expeditions to the North Pole. And then there was also coal mining. Nowadays, the city of Longyearbyen, once known as a mining town, features hotels, restaurants and the University of Svalbard, founded in 1994, one of the most renowned places for the study of Arctic Science, I understand.

Cemetery @ Julia de Cooker

Julia de Cooker writes: “About two thousand people from more than forty countries live in the city. They take advantage of the special status of Svalbard, which allows them to live there without visas or working permits.” This is pretty exceptional indeed and I would have very much liked to discover as to why that is – yet the book doesn’t provide such information. I would also have appreciated to learn about the personal views of people living there, about their motivation to choose life in such a remote part of the planet etc.

Well, there are the pictures and they are testimony to something truly extraordinary. They visually complement Julia de Cookers interesting observations and deliberations. For instance, Svalbard is a place without tradition, there has never been an indigenuous community. Also, a quarter of the population is changing every year. Last but not least: “The combination of elements that have nothing to do with each other, or with the natural environment, is gripping. Is the presence of a limousine not surprising in a place where schools hold safety drills in case of a visit by a polar bear, where the priest moves about by helicopter, where houses so close to the North Pole have balconies?”

Longyaerbyen by Night @ Julia de Cooker

I’m fascinated by wide and empty spaces, especially the desert and the arctic. And, while I do know that there is quite some life out there in that nowhere, it is not what comes to mind when I look at these pictures of polar landscapes that show me a not exactly welcoming nature that can, obviously, do without human beings. Instead, I wonder why somebody would want to live in a place so far from what most people would term civilisation.

Julia de Cooker does not attempt to answer such questions but shows the strangeness that she must have felt when in Svalbard. She doesn’t question what she encountered, she documents it. And, in so doing lets the viewer wonder as much as she did when she arrived in this science fiction kind of place.

Life is truly stranger than fiction, and Svalbard – An Arcticficial Life once again proves it.

Svalbard – An Arcticficial Life
by Julia de Cooker

Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg 2017
www.kehrerverlag.com

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Book review: Return to Fukushima by Rebecca Bathory

Posted on September 16th, 2017 by Cary Benbow

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was directly impacted by an earthquake on the 3rd of March, 2011. Tsunami waves breeched the perimeter of the power facility, and the resulting flood waters caused the plant to shut down. Overheated reactors exploded, radioactivity was released via the air and in water that washed into the sea. A thirty mile exclusion zone was established and a mass exodus of residents scattered out across Japan. Whole towns and villages were evacuated. Some villages were completely washed away by the sea. In these places, quite literally, the clock stopped on 3/11. Cats and farm animals starved in the streets. Food rotted in restaurant bowls. Open school books lie in place on desks. Non-essential belongings sit abandoned on the beds, counters, and surfaces in thousands of homes. Silence reigned.

In 2016, the residents of the town of Tomioka were given permission to return to walk their streets in the midst of a beautiful display of cherry blossoms. Rebecca Bathory was finally given permission to photograph in the exclusion zone — to capture for future generations this dark yet hopeful moment in their history.

This collection of images is intended to capture the sadness of a moment in history, a moment that is relevant to us all — no matter your politics or stance on nuclear power. In the end, these macro-economic decisions are measured out in individual human lives, losses and hopes.

Also, Fukushima is about more than just the kind of images that fit into the trope of melancholy, abandoned scenes. Bathory’s images contain a palpable absence of people who inhabited these scenes. The images of the city, the houses, stores, and streets are so complete in their absence of people. The disaster story of the nuclear plant accident, and the resulting purge of residents to safety, is very different than images of a building or hospital or school where one knows that people used to frequent those spaces at some time in the past. Here are entire cities where you know people are supposed to be now.

Bathory has photographed other similar locations, most notably Chernobyl. She says in her book that she photographed there, and one could deduce in Japan as well, because “as nature claims back the buildings that once thrived with life, in years to come they become just ruins and the photos I have taken on these trips will serve as a historical record. These photos are a reminder for me of that tragic event, and to those that view them show the fragility of human existence and how powers such as this should be treated carefully so as not to allow events like this to happen again.”

Return to Fukushima
by Rebecca Bathory
192 pages, Hardback
ISBN 978–1–908211–48–4
Published by Carpet Bombing Culture
www.carpetbombingculture.co.uk

Rebecca Bathory is a photographer based in the UK. She has published a number of photo books that ‘find beauty in darkness, poetry and meaning in the forgotten and surreal, imaginary worlds amongst decay.’ To see more of her work, please visit: http://www.rebeccabathory.com/

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