WAR ON THE ENVIRONMENT
2014, RADIOACTIVITY CAUGHT ON MEDIUM FORMAT FILM
Based on research into Wikileaks‘ published documents and collaboration with a British NGO, the project‘s core was evidential documentation of radioactive contamination in former Yugoslavia during the war. The leaked documents brought to light the site where NATO forces deployed depleted uranium ammunition.
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The approach of the documentary aims at the evidence. Already in the early research of radioactivity, photographic methods were used to detect radioactive radiation. This documentary work combines both paths and photographed affected regions with a panoramic camera on medium format negative film, deposited the exposed film about 10 cm deep in the soil, and set a geotag. After more than seven months, the film was collected and developed. The landscape photographs are flanked by excerpts of documents proving the use of DU by NATO and with small images of aerial maps on which the exact coordinates are shown by a geotag. This information has become public through Wikileaks and is actively used by some NGOs, but the inhabitants are still unaware of this invisible danger in many cases.
The strategy was to expose a medium format film not only to the radiation of light reflected by the landscape but also expose the film material for a year to the radioactivity at the site. Former combat zones of armed conflict often have significant ecological after-effects. This specific type of depleted uranium (DU) is internationally banned, and still, we find evidence of contamination. It causes an invisible threat to all life in the area long after the conflict has ended.
Reprint of a letter proving the use of DU ammunition leaked by Wikileaks.