everything we make wears out: paul fusco photo essay

Photographer Paul Fusco has traveled with us and in this incredibly affecting multimedia photo essay captures the human side of the Chernobyl tragedy.

I've only been involved in this work for 5 years but it seems to me that the "Chernobyl" issue (big quotes intentional) always seems to get bogged down in politics -- nuclear politics, environmental politics, UN politics, post Soviet politics ....  And it's sad, because "Chernobyl" has been taken over by interest groups (both pro and anti). These groups are asking really good and important questions, but never really getting close to the human heart of the matter and maybe even avoiding it on purpose.

It takes an artist like Paul Fusco to point out that however you might feel about nuclear politics, this disaster forces us to stare at loss, and at how our best inventions and intentions can fail us --  and there is no point in denying it. Click here to see some of what happened after, in Paul's words,"some guy hit the wrong button at the wrong time. And there was nothing he could do about it."