{"id":5999,"date":"2011-11-22T09:07:56","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T15:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/?p=5999"},"modified":"2012-04-22T09:22:45","modified_gmt":"2012-04-22T14:22:45","slug":"interview-with-jan-smith-bulkka-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/22\/interview-with-jan-smith-bulkka-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Jan Smith – Bulkka Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Bulkka Magazine – Interview with Jan Smith<\/h1>\n
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Bulkka Interview with Jan Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Feature by Bulkka Magazine. \u00a0I explain the genesis of Igrushka and Pripyat–my work in Ukraine related to Chernobyl.<\/p>\n
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POSTED ON\u00a0 NOVEMBER 22, 2011<\/a>\u00a0BY\u00a0 BULKKA<\/a><\/div>\n
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By Laura Hill<\/em>
\nIn 2009 I was approached by a Ukrainian magazine EGO for a feature interview. It\u2019s a men\u2019s magazine which was trying at the time to elevate its cultural level.
\nHave you ever considered developing a photo essay in Ukraine and in Chernobyl in particular?- was one of the interview questions. Although I was familiar with Chernobyl, and it appealed to my work on abandoned places, I had never considered it. I thought it was already too covered, and the images that came to mind were those of the accident and children with mutations. But I said: \u201cIf somebody were to help sponsor my time there and help me with logistics, I would go\u201d.<\/p>\n
Few days later they helped me to organize a trip. I was already planning to visit Russia and Central Asia for another project, and visiting Ukraine 25 years later after the nuclear disaster, folded nicely into my plans. During my first interviews I learned that there is a general social fatigue concerning Chernobyl and it\u2019s effects. People are tired of being portrayed as victims and retelling tales of cancer, radiation, and mutations. It\u2019s not that these issues aren\u2019t important, it\u2019s just that there is so much more to tell. It\u2019s become almost a yearly ritual: every April journalists arrive and ask the same questions and tell the same stories to the international media. And there really is so much more to tell.<\/p>\n
When I started exploring and asking questions about childhood, Chernobyl simply became one more element in the lives of the people I interviewed. They became the protagonists and what they shared was surprising. They started sending their friends to me to interview them, their family, inviting me for drinks, on trips. It rapidly became very intense and involving. Ironically, my original plans in Russia are still on hold, and I\u2019ve spent more time in Ukraine than I ever imagined I would. I called the project\u00a0Igrushka<\/em>which means\u00a0Toy\u00a0<\/em>in Russian.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
http:\/\/www.bulkka.com\/tag\/jan-smith-photographer-chernobyl\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"*
Bulkka Magazine – Interview with Jan Smith Feature by Bulkka Magazine. \u00a0I explain the genesis of Igrushka and Pripyat–my work in Ukraine related to Chernobyl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[1029,185,1030,49,415,44,242],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5999"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6003,"href":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5999\/revisions\/6003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smithjan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}