The Toxic Camera is a new short film for cinematic screening by British artists Jane and Louise Wilson, former Turner Prize nominees. The film reflects on the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, inspired by the film Chernobyl: A Chronicle of Difficult Weeks made by Soviet filmmaker Vladimir Shevchenko in the days immediately following the accident. On processing his film, Shevchenko noticed sections of it were heavily pockmarked and affected by static interference, coinciding with the sound of his Geiger counter measuring radiation, and realised that radiation was effectively "˜visible' on the film material itself.
The Wilson's film explores interconnecting stories from the interviews conducted with Chernobyl "˜veterans' and with Shevchenko's film crew, 25 years after the incident. The narrative includes the story of the camera that Shevchenko used which became highly radioactive that it was subsequently buried on the outskirts of kiev. The film is a reflection on the material nature of the film and considers the human impact of disasters such as Chernobyl.
