Side Effect
Unintended archival {photo}traces of the nuclear age
Vasilisa Lukianycheva
historian and visual studies researcher based in Vienna
13-15th June, from 14h to 19h
Opening: Friday, 13th of June, 19h
Curatorial talks: 14th & 15th June, 15h & 18h
Side effect is an unintended consequence – in this case, an unintended photographic meaning, evoked from within the archive. Shadowed in IAEA archives by documentation of peaceful applications of nuclear energy, these photographs show the way how people, connected to the institution, used camera for understanding their own experience. These are unforeseen, lost and often anonymous photographic traces of the world seen and experienced through the eyes of nuclear photographer– where and when, behind the camera, he became an explorer of the world. An archival side effect reveals how photographic practice within the international institution went beyond documentation of civilian nuclear energy applications and captured unexpected connections between places and times, humans and nature, across decades.
Current exhibition is an artistic perspective on archival material from International Atomic Energy Agency archives. This is an independent artistic and curatorial project. It does not represent the views or official positions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or its archive.
All archival photographs courtesy of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), unless otherwise noted. Selected and interpreted by Vasilisa Lukianycheva as part of the exhibition.
Vasilisa Lukianycheva
(*2000, Moscow), historian and visual studies researcher, received an undergraduate degree in Higher School of Economics in Moscow. Worked as a tour guide in GULAG History Museum in Moscow, dedicated to the memory of victims of political repressions. Researched photography of completely different periods and topics – from amateur travel photography in 1890s Central Asia to American Depression-era social photography. Participated in multiple workshops, among which:
- 2024 EUI project “The Forgotten Album” about a mid-19th century photo album of Habsburg diplomats
- 2022 Photography studies research seminar “The mushroom and the end of the world: photographic recording of nuclear tests in the USA and the USSR in the 1940s–1960s ...” , in participant with Galina Orlova, European University at St. Petersburg
- 2022 “Photographic Time of the Atomic Age: Temporality, Trauma, and Collective Punctum in the Photographs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, for NLO publishing house “Burden of Time: Critical Temporality of the 20th Century”