New York based photographer Robert Polidori has
received critical acclaim for his photographs of
historic and modern cities and architectural sites
around the world. In his words “where you point
the camera is the question and the picture you get
is the answer” and his subtle interrogation of
urbanity reveals corporeality expressed through
materiality.

For three days in 2001 Polidori photographed
Chernobyl and the surrounding areas fifteen years
after reactor number four exploded—the worst
nuclear accident in history that rendered the area
uninhabitable for the next several thousand years.

The radioactive material released in the explosion
caused thousands of related deaths and harm to
millions of people. It is a site that has been
called “a modern day Pompeii”. The reactor is now
encased in a concrete sarcophagus, a ruined
monument to the Soviet empire. Polidori’s
disturbing, hauntingly beautiful photographs of
the abandoned buildings where hundreds of
thousands of people once lived reflect his
interest in contradictions of existence. In the
fifteen large-scale colour photographs of this
exhibition, we see the latent meanings of the
built enviroments we create, inhabit, abandon and
destroy.