Chernobyl herbarium. La vita dopo il disastro nucleare

by Michael Marder, Anaïs Tondeur (Illustrator)

A 40 anni dalla più grande catastrofe nucleare della storia, Chernobyl Herbarium ripercorre il lascito di questo drammatico evento con una narrazione in cui i frammenti poetici di Michael Marder, filosofo ambientale e vittima indiretta delle radiazioni, si intrecciano ai delicati fotogrammi vegetali dell’artista visuale Anaïs Tondeur. Il vero e proprio trauma che nel 1986 investì l’Europa intera, raggiungendo proporzioni planetarie, ha definitivamente incrinato le nostre facili illusioni di sicurezza e la fiducia nel progresso tecnologico. Parlare della vita dopo Chernobyl significa pensare l’impensabile e rappresentare l’irrappresentabile di una “coscienza esplosa”; di qui la scelta narrativa dei frammenti, riflessioni dettate da esperienze personali, eventi politici, oggetti estetici, e un uso dell’immagine che restituisce il più fedelmente possibile l’anima ferita di Chernobyl: né fotografie né dipinti, ma delicate immagini di piante irradiate, fotogrammi generati dalle impronte dirette di campioni d’erbario radioattivi disposti su carta fotosensibile. Nell’era dell’Antropocene e del cambiamento climatico che vede l’uomo dominatore assoluto della natura, possiamo e dobbiamo far nostre la voce dolorosa e insieme la speranza di rigenerazione delle piante risorte dalle ceneri del disastro, coltivare un altro modo di vivere, finalmente in sintonia con l’ambiente.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Michael Marder is IKERBASQUE Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. An author of seven books and over 100 articles, he is a specialist in phenomenology, political thought, and environmental philosophy.

Reviews

[Osore Misanthrope · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Опасно наивна идеја напретка” довела нас је у тачку без повратка, где су непријатељи наш невидљиви изопачени изрод – зрачење, микропластика, отровчине… Леталне компоненте лете и изван Зоне отуђења, корелатива Замјатиновог Зеленог зида, јер двоножац без крила је одприрођен: посрнуо, искљуцан и окован, извршио је “трансфер суверенитета на атом”, успоставио “режим тишине” у коме бива биоскулптурисан, мутиран, делетиран.

Фотограми, настали стављањем чернобиљских биљака на фотосензитивни папир који светлост потамњује, остављајући обрисе биљних делова као израчене одблеске, опомињу и застрашују, оличавају крхкост, али и пластичност вегетативног. Обезљуђена планета је неминовност; тренутак у коме нема овако прозаичних реченичних сплачина – ни филозофских, ни уметничких, ни у мисли, ни у стилу – јесте спасоносан. Треба надживети осам милијарди будала.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a book. Everyone should read it. It has changed my views on plants and the way we process (or don't process at all) events and disasters. Also, this book hits different during a pandemic, too...

We don't control our lives at all, do we? And yet I wish we made healthier choices.

My favourite quote:

plants teach us that there is no infinite growth, no growth without decay, itself the precondition for future growth.

I want to try and read some other books by Michael Marder.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting and has some very thought provoking considerations of temporality, technology and disaster, but tends to revert to the (disappointing) big ‘we’ of humanity and human nature, and uses tediously high-philosophical language at times

[Callum MH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a challenging read, academically rigorous, but fascinating in how the author and artist (in their philosophy-art collaboration of literary ‘fragments’ and corresponding photograms of radioactive plants) craft a herbarium that considers Chernobyl, the exploded consciousness it caused, and how the event requires us to be more like plants in response to the analogous effects of climate change we face.

[Margarete Maneker · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Chernobyl disaster is a mugwort disaster—not, to be sure, of the mugwort itself, but of our relation to it and, through it, to vegetal nature as, at once, a part and a condensed representation of nature as a whole."

wow!!!! loved this, really lovely introduction to Marder's work, which so aligns with my own interests. accessible, interesting philosophy about the bodymind and the vegetal kingdom <3333

[Francisco Becerra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of photograms of Chernobyl’s radioactive flora, with thought-provoking snippets about mortality, endings, the clashes between technology and nature, transformation and isolation. Some of them could benefit for an extensive dialogue with nuclear engineering, with what can be done do get things right, and not just mourn the disaster. Still, this is a very profound reflection about technology going wrong and its myriad repercussions.

[Margaryta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard a lot about this text and was excited to have a reason to read it as part of my field exams. I liked the format and the way Marder mixes the personal/autofictional with the nonfictional/lightly theoretical. This is also a text that was much more personal than I expected it to be because of the subject matter and my cultural background.

[saizine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating little book ruminating on the effects of Chernobyl on the natural environment. The images/photography are particularly resonant, as well as Fragments 6 (“One is ineluctably passive in the face of radioactivity”), 9 (“Besides the plants that have grown in radioactive soil, the shards of our own exploded consciousness are reassembled in it, albeit not glued together—neither mended nor healed”), 11 (“voices and words (whispered or screamed out)”), 13 (“’It strokes the surfaces of things… consoling them, patting them, offering gentle contact, caress. It is possible to be touched without a modicum of sentimentality”), 20 (“Humanity has been digging its own grave for quite a long time… Radiation and the techno-madness it metonymizes eat our flesh, eat into it. But there is more to it: the Sarcophagus is a Psychophagus, soul-eating”), 24 (“Plants will gently gag the silent scream of things”), and 27 (“We live after the end of the world. Or, more accurately, after an end of the world… The world has handed, is ending in innumerable ways, and will keep ending for some time to come”). Definitely makes you think and engage beyond the standard reaction to nuclear disaster.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliantly constructed considerations through art and philosophy on the meaning of Chernobyl (as a place, as a disaster) with a perfectly weighted balance between theory and personal experience. The featured artworks (scans of plant-life from Chernobyl) are haunting and abrupt as bridges between each of the 'fragments' (or chapters).