Photo: Eulalie Pernelet

Safety Report

The notion of truth is in crisis at the present time, while Zuzana Pustaiova’s personal crisis is the proximity of nuclear facility to her home. Concerned for the safety of herself and her neighbours, the photographer began to investigate what was happening at Mochovce, the largest nuclear power plant in Slovakia. The starting point for her investigation was a sense of distrust and lack of credibility surrounding the narrative promoted by official communication channels. Her decision to obtain information first-hand is framed within a context of multiple social disasters taking place all over the world. It is against this backdrop that doubt emerges as a symptom of a collective malaise.

In Safety Report, the artist considers the nuclear power plant an ideal pretext for a debate on the ways in which security discourses are constructed by governments and the corporate sector. In turn, differences in opinion between civil society and public institutions provide evidence of a global policy characterised by the administration of fear. Through constructed photography and reappropriation of existing images, the artist reveals that wellbeing is little more than a mask used by powerful elites to achieve their objectives. It becomes clear that the nuclear facility is not just a power plant, but also a factory for the country’s political discourse.

In this project, the artist observes how the more technologies are available for an informed search for information in the digital era, paradoxically, the less clear it is what is happening before our eyes. Given the legal restrictions on depicting any aspect of the nuclear power plant, Pustaiova shifts from the role of photographer to that of editor, which is characterised by scepticism towards reality. Feeling that she has lost her human scale amid the power of the media, she ponders how to salvage our relationship with the world through images and how we can fight against power in the modern age.

César González-Aguirre
curator

Photographs: Ján Viazanička