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OLEKSANDRA RADCHENKO | Hiroshima, Nagasaki

 Within this installation the main focus was an idea of disruption, purity and grief illustrated by war and nuclear power, and how sometimes people are unaware of the consequences of their doings. With this I want to draw how thin is the line between war and peace, disruption and repair, hope and loss.


   My point of interest became Hiroshima and Nagasaki events of 1942, as these two cities were destroyed within minutes and consequences are still present today. This year it is 70 years since this horrific events with have pushed me to develop the artwork. This is what brought me to the famous story of Sadako Sasaki, the girl who became a victim of nuclear bomb explosion in Hiroshima, after a decade she was diagnosed with leukemia. However, she wanted to live, so she turned to Japanese belief about ‘Senbazuru’ (‘Tsuru’), origami paper cranes. The legend was that if she would complete 1000 paper cranes her dream would come true. Even today in primary schools children learn how to assemble origami. Paper cranes emphasize the idea of dreams, hope, peace, innocence within my piece.


 Sound and Space allows audience to get absorbed within installation. The idea behind this was to make the audience feel disturbed under the influence of sound, video and paper cranes. The shadows from paper cranes make video footage like a broken mirror with lots of pieces, it disturbs the completeness of the pictures, and illustrates aggression and malevolence. 


This installation was influenced by works of Anna Lewis, Wolgang Leib,Takashi Murakami and Charles Ledray in the way that how many can form the one, as well as symbolism, memories and history.Throughout the project you can see the echo of politics, as there would be no war and nuclear conflicts without politics. However, it was not the main intention, as its focuses on the idea of how entire countries could be wiped out in a minute. This art piece is looking at many interconnected threads. It is an attempt to articulate the pendulum swing between destruction and repair. The paper cranes with their projections hover between presence and disappearance. The art work itself also contains interesting contradictions: How can materials so beautiful hold images that so malevolent? These tensions signify the paradox of the sublime. This liminal space between destruction and repair ultimately reminds us of what time brings; transformation, inevitability, loss, hope.  It reflects  on the cyclical nature of loss and rebirth, that space and time are permanent only in the sense of duration, durable to the degree that they will always transform. 

  The pictures in the footage are pictures of kids that have been suffering during Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl, as well as the contrast images of happy children. The images of happy kids will be pictures of USSR pioneers during their summer holidays in international summer camps. This links to the film that have inspired  towards the project -‘Здравствуйте Дети!!’, as USSR pioneer came together in order to safe a life of a Japanese girl. The music was layered on to the footage, it is one of the pioneer songs (propaganda), that symbolizes happiness and peace. It will have a heavy contrast with the images, as they are shocking and horrifying. The music track was specifically edited, after the research on II World War, and an effect of an isolated place, that has been wiped out with nuclear power to a ground of 0. This video installation illustrates the tension of war and suffering, and highlight the idea of peace.