Post-Nuclear Identity

Post-Nuclear identity - a photo story - explores a fairly unique phenomenon in Lithuania – the crisis looming over the city of Visaginas after the nuclear power plant was closed.

Located in the forests of the Aukštaitija region, Visaginas is Lithuania’s youngest city to the east. The residents are solid professionals of various fields – they came here from different nations of the Soviet Union in the 1970s. One can only imagine the interesting and unusual atmosphere of living in a completely new destination, with highly educated residents from many countries and of diverse religious beliefs working for a single company.

The mentioned power plant was a source of comfortable, proud, stable living, and as the people themselves proclaim, it was a monument to the locals, built by their own hands. Therefore, stopping all operations of the plant and disassembling it was a hard blow to the city’s economic and emotional state. Officially, Visaginas hosts people of 46 different nations – Russian is still a dominant language, which is still mandatory to know if you’re working at the power plant. However, the linguistic, territorial and cultural barriers result in very specific problems that the city faces. Mass media often paints a negative picture, referring to Visaginas as a pro-Russian place, this way feeding the stereotypes and portraying the city as a non-Lithuanian one.

The author of the photo story - Neringa Rekašiūtė [Neriŋgə Rekə∫iu:tə] - decided to get to know Visaginas up close and personal – she’s a photographer who has been living here for a year, conducting photographic research on the local individuals and their daily rituals. These connecting experiences and photos welcome the rest of the country to get acquainted with the residents of Visaginas. A method of slow photography is used to delve into the everyday lives of the people, capturing it all with a medium-format analog camera in exceptionally high quality.

It’s worth mentioning that the case of Visaginas is interesting not only on a local, but also on a more global scale – the closing of nuclear cities is a relevant issue for quite a few countries. Power plants like this one here will begin their end-journey all over the world in the very near future.

Neringa Rekašiūtė is a Bachelor of Photography with a diploma from Middlesex University, London. At the moment she is finishing her bachelor degree in International Relations and Political Science at Vilnius University. The artist takes great interest in topics such as gender equality, human rights, cultural and religious diversity, intercultural dialogue.

Neringa’s work appeared in The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Dazed&Confused, Vanity Fair Italia, Radio Free Europe.

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