Text by CLOT Magazine
On Saturday, April 26 1986, at the No. 4 reactor in the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union, a nuclear accident occurred. The CHRNBL International Forum, started today, 6th October 2021, is dedicated to the impact of Chornobyl on humanity and its rethinking today.
The forum is held simultaneously in 11 countries, with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. It brings together more than 50 international and Ukrainian experts to a new global communication platform to study the issues of environment, sustainability, media literacy, and social, cultural and economic problems based on the example of Chornobyl.
Disaster Liquidators, scientists, experts and representatives of Ukraine, the USA, Canada, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, Greece, Slovenia and the Czech Republic will meet at CHRNBL FORUM.
Responding to the challenges of COVID19, CHRNBL FORUM is technologically adapted for even conditions under lockdown. The forum takes place from October 6 to 10, 2021, in the format of live broadcasts and online discussions, with a recording of the event from the studio in Kyiv and synchronous translation.
The forum program will be complemented by an interactive exhibition CHRNBL in a proper anti-COVID format, based on the mobile application that will take place simultaneously in 11 countries.
Each of the five days of CHRNBL FORUM will be a separate thematic panel, lasting 4 hours each, from 12:00 to 16:00 Kyiv time (EEST). CHRNBL FORUM thematic panels:
October 6, 2021 – Rethinking the cultural heritage of nationwide traumatic events; October 7, 2021 – Unique opportunities of the Exclusion Zone and vectors of development of Chernobyl research projects; October 8, 2021 – Strategy for reintegration into the society of liquidators and victims of the Chernobyl accident; October 9, 2021. The role of culture, art and new technologies in uncovering historical events; and October 10, 2021 – Historical research in the era of post-truth and narrative of the consequences of the collapse of the USSR today.
CLOT Magazine contributor Piotr Bockowski will be contributing to the forum tomorrow, 7th October with Mycotopia in Chernobyl Exlusion Zone, a video piece in which he examines the role of fungal expressions in the exclusion zone.
In Piotr’s words: Mycotopia in Chernobyl Exlusion Zone introduces a concept of Paul Stamets’ mycofiltration of radioactivity by strategic stimulation of fungi growth and mushroom picking with an aim to scavenge radioactive contaminants. Video narrative by Piotr Bockowski sets the concept against the theory-fiction of “blobology” speculations by Reza Negarestani and SF landscape of Strugatsky brothers’ the Zone, invaded by fungal alien.
Video by Piotr Bockowski was filmed on a chemical dump site at an abandoned soviet facility in Estonia. It features Benjamin Creek acting as a researcher and sound by Oksana Zmorovych.
CLOT Magazine will be hosting one of the CHRNBL online exhibitions. More news is coming soon. You can connect to the forum via the Chornobyl App facebook.
