Stalking the Chernobyl Zone

Atmospheres, Temporalities and Vital Remainders
Saturday, April 13, 2019 | 10:00AM – 2:30PM | FREE
Room 7000 – SFU Harbour Centre | 515 W Hastings St, Vancouver

PANEL 1 | 10:00AM

Moderated by Stephen Collis (SFU, English)
Svitlana Matviyenko (SFU, Communication)
Lindsey Freeman (SFU, Sociology)
Adrian Ivakhiv (University of Vermont)

PANEL 2 | 12:00PM

Moderated by John O'Brian (UBC Art History)
Sanem Güvenç-Salgırlı (Emily Carr University)
Svitlana Matviyenko (SFU Communication)
Eldritch Priest (SFU School for the Contemporary Arts)

For many the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is mostly a tragic marker of a great mistake, an illustration of the dangers of nuclear power, and one of the last nails in the coffin of the USSR. Its continued existence is often reduced to little more than an adventurous tourist destination or a seemingly endless cleanup project. In June 2018, a group of us travelled to the Zone for a three-day research expedition to spend time thinking the site within the site. We took seriously the status of the Zone as an environmental and political concern, as well as an ongoing experiment on the very concepts of life and the ecological lessons in the (im)possibility of recovery. Our goal was to create a set of documents that does justice to its material, political, and affective complexity. During this one-day symposium, we will share our findings.

More information HERE.

Presented by the SFU Institute for the Humanities.