Opening of the unique diorama of the first minutes of the Chornobyl tragedy took place in the “Wormwood Star” Museum in Yevpatoria on the Day of celebrating liquidators of the Chornobyl disaster. On this day, the author of the diorama Ivan Kudriavtsev was awarded the “Patriot of Ukraine” Order. Kudriavtsev spoke to The Day about his work: “Such presentation of the tragedy that took place on April 26, 1986 was made for the first time in Ukraine and has no analogues. Diorama shows the early hours of the accident, vividly demonstrates the scale of the tragedy. I carefully studied hundreds of photographs to be able to make a perfect copy of the station, the exact shape of the rubble of the destroyed reactor, and while working on the background, I also took into account video of the day. Chornobyl diorama has been designed for artificial lighting: sources of warm and cold light are projected from different angles, this creates a distinct picture of the events. Inside the wreckage of the destroyed reactor a beam of blue light is breaking through showing the intensity of radiation. Streams of smoke from the ‘burning reactor’ rise to the surface.”
Why did you decide to work with this subject? What did the work on this project mean to you?
“Initially, it was planned to simply present a model of Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the “Wormwood Star” Museum in Yevpatoria. The local authorities came to me with such proposal. But I, as an artist, constantly moved by experiment and important task, saw it differently. First, it is boring to work on an ordinary model, because in everything I do I try to put some significant meaning. Second, I did not want to do something others did before. Third, the subject really touched my soul and I simply couldn’t limit it to a schematic model, I absolutely did not want to do it this way. And then I got the idea of making a diorama. I realized that this was something that had to be presented at the museum.”
How will the visual representation of your idea affect the audience?
“My goal, as an artist and direct performer, from the idea to its full implementation was to make a diorama of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in such a way that people, looking at it, would remember those terrible days and would bow their heads down in gratitude for the heroes, who sacrificed their lives and health for our future. To achieve the effect I selected the most favorable angle from an artistic point of view: the horizon line is at the eye level of a person of average height, which gives the diorama perspective visual and spatial advantage and an imperceptible transition of the construction from the large painting into the foreground creates an illusion of presence. If space would allow and there were no strict financial limitations, the diorama would have been interactive, dynamic, closer to the traditional canons of dioramas creations but using the latest materials and special effects.”
What do you think about the actual trips to Chornobyl zone? Can a trip to the museum replace the actual tour?
“Chornobyl, especially Prypiat and its neighborhood, in recent years have been turned into a leisure tour route for those aching to get some adrenalin under the pretext of promoting the memory of the tragedy. It is sad. True heroism and courage should be promoted in museums, which should provide a wide range of reliable historic information so that the younger generation when they hear the word Chornobyl NPP would recall a trip to museum and not the computer game. I have received an offer to go on a tour to Chornobyl on several occasions but I do not want to go there because while working on this subject I studied it so closely, felt the bitterness and pain of loss and now the clear feeling of presence is haunting me.”
