By James Estrin
Oct. 2, 2014
Arthur Bondar is not exactly the type to take orders. He gave up pursuing a military career when he realized in college that “fighting was not a good way to solve problems.” Instead, he turned to photography, working for a Ukrainian photo agency.
“I worked really hard and I tried to repeat the pictures of different photographers, but I found that uninteresting,” he said. “So I started to find my own photography.”
Unfortunately, his bosses thought his “photos were too artistic” and fired him. Yet, the very day he had to return his camera gear, he learned he had won the Pikto competition and was awarded an exhibit in Canada.
Freed from having to make pictures that were mere illustrations, he started documenting the people who still lived near the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. Over the next four years he made relationships, gained access — even staying in a house that was inside the excluded zone. The photos are a personal view of the nuclear disaster’s effects on nature and on people.
As he was finishing the Chernobyl project he realized that it was just the end of a single chapter in what would become his magnum opus — a three-part study of Ukraine, which has been riven by conflict over Crimea, among other things.
“I wanted to talk about not just Chernobyl but all of the Ukraine, and so I had to photograph the whole country,” he said. “We have huge economic, environmental and political crises in Ukraine. The war in eastern Ukraine is just a consequence of everything that has happened in the whole period of independence in Ukraine.”
CreditArthur Bondar/VII Photo Mentor ProgramFishing is prohibited in the excluded zone around Chernobyl, but people depend on it to feed their families.
Growing up in Ukraine, he remembers a country with great natural beauty whose national identity was forged during World War II after centuries of outside rule and internal dispute. It was not yet an independent nation, but a Soviet republic that had endured hardships, including a devastating, politically induced famine, in which millions of people died.
His project reflects his deep interest in his country’s history, something into which he delved during college — when he was not at one of the many jobs he held then, including waiting tables and delivering newspapers.
For his project, Mr. Bondar crossed Ukraine on an ancient trading route along the Dnieper River. But instead of making separate chapters on eastern and western Ukraine, he decided to show a unified country — the way he remembers Ukraine, and hopes it will remain.
After this year’s Maidan revolution and Russia’s intervention, however, an annexed Crimea became Mr. Bondar’s final chapter. He supported the protests when they started in 2013 but disapproved of the violence that followed. As recently as last month, war was raging in the eastern part of Ukraine between the new government’s army and Russian-speaking separatists armed by the Russian government.
Like those of many of his countrymen, Mr. Bondar’s family has mixed roots. His father is a Russian speaker originally from North Ossetia, and his mother is Ukrainian and speaks both languages.
“I’m sure in this war we will not have any winners — all of us will be losers,” Mr. Bondar said. “We are brothers and there is no sense to fight against each other.”
CreditArthur Bondar/VII Photo Mentor ProgramCelebrating the Day of Russia in Sevastopol, Crimea. June 12, 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment