Chernobyl Project
On the Weekend of the 17th of April 2016, Australian Street artist Guido van Helten and Ukrainian Arts coordinator and Filmmaker Geo Leros from Ukraine collaborated on the first street art mural project to be created within the Chernobyl restricted area in Ukraine.
Working in a photorealistic style, Guido van Helten created the painting from a photograph taken by renowned photojournalist Igor Kostin during the disaster to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Nuclear catastrophe which occurred on the 26th April 1986. The work was created with assistance from the Chernobyl district authorities inside disused and unfinished Chernobyl Reactor 5, which was under construction at the time of the accident.
Guido van Helten chose to recreate the work of Igor Kostin in the mural who was famous for first documenting the disaster as it happened in 1986 and spent many years of his life documenting the strenuous clean up activities following the disaster sacrificing his health for his cause and playing a great part in sharing the dangers of nuclear accidents with the world. Igor Kostin passed away in 2015.
"I wanted to create a work that honoured the sacrifice Igor Kostin made in the documentation of this disaster and for the importance of photojournalism as a medium of sharing of information with the world and in this case, showing the extreme dangers Nuclear energy can have." said Guido van Helten.
Filmmaker Geo Leros from Ukraine documented the creation of the work with a short film which is to be released on the 26th of April to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster which injured and displaced 100,000’s of people in the years following.
"This movie is not just about the mural, it’s a story about Igor Kostin, about a
journalist who battled everyday to put his life in danger to share with us this
information, it’s the story about the strong people who fight with this disaster" said Geo Leros.
