Danila Tkachenko

Restricted Areas

© Danila Tkachenko

“One day, I went to visit my grandmother who lived in a secluded city, the very existence of which was once kept secret,” recounts Danila Tkachenko. “This is where the very first Soviet atomic bomb was developed. In the 1960s, a nuclear disaster occurred there but it was covered up by the authorities and classified as a military secret. However, a vast area had been contaminated. The first picture of my Restricted Areas project was taken there.”

Higher, stronger, better… People are always tempted to acquire more than they already have, to accomplish more than they’ve already done. With this artistic project, Danila Tkachenko sought to illustrate the human urge to attain some kind of Utopia, to strive for perfection through technological progress. In this never-ending race, the finish line shifts like the sunset on the horizon: once you think you’ve reached it, it disappears again only to reappear a little further away. And governments are sometimes willing to sacrifice pretty much everything in an attempt to cross the finishing line.

Tkachenko is an artist and photographer who has won numerous awards for his work. He visited these places built on the foundations of a technological progress that he never experienced personally. These cities do not feature on any map. They are monumental symbols of bygone Soviet power and an ideology that is now obsolete. They are the theatres of forgotten scientific achievements from an imagined future, which lost their significance when the utopian ideology behind them died out. “We need to remember that these facilities were created by the state – and not by individuals,” Tkachenko continues. “I believe that state structures are much more focused on their own well-being and safety than that of their people. As a result of this mindset, the actions and decisions of the state often lead to disasters that affect the entire population.”

In Restricted Areas, Tkachenko captures a ghostly environment, recording these vestiges of the march of progress for prosperity. Like memories from another time. “These totalitarian systems must constantly demonstrate their superiority to inspire people with impossible ideals, but they never last very long. When they collapse, their only legacy is these huge abandoned monuments. Although we now live in a completely different situation and that it’s difficult for me to predict what will be left in 50 years’ time, I’m afraid we won’t actually have to wait that long to see a similar phenomenon occur all over again.” Tkachenko delivers a photographic reflection on the past of a system that some thought was unshakeable and which, inevitably, gives us pause to reflect on the future of the system we live in today.

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