— FROM Homage: Remembering Chernobyl (2011)

The Homage project began when photographer Jim Krantz discovered a letter in an abandoned home within the nineteen mile area of highest radiation surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Within was an elegy to the authorʼs lost city and the anguish he experienced as he was forced to leave his home, promising to return one day.

As Krantz explored the city and met with its denizens — ravaged by the effects of the radiation and rampant alcoholism, and lacking the means or will to leave their homes, he became determined to return the worldʼs attention to the long-forgotten disaster that has come to symbolize the excesses of the cold war and the dangers posed by nuclear power.

The result was Homage, a series of photographs and video work depicting the ruined city and the souls who remain twenty-five years after the unspeakable tragedy that captured the worldʼs headlines and placed the specter of nuclear disaster in the forefront of its imagination.

— COURTESY OF JIM KRANTZ STUDIOS