"Nuclear Tourism" Exhibition at Visa Pour l'Image

"Nuclear Tourism," a selection of Gerd Ludwig's photographs of tourism in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, will be exhibited at Visa Pour l'Image in Perpignan, August 29 - September 18, 2015.

In 2011, as people around the world watched TV reports on the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, the Ukrainian government gave approval for travel inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which has now become a disaster-tourism destination.

Tourists take pictures of the sarcophagus encasing the reactor, but the top attraction is the ghost town of Pripyat, once home to nearly 50,000, now decaying and overgrown by nature, a less than truthful witness to its sudden abandonment. Visitors and tour guides have set up tableaux to evoke scenes, with, for example, a doll arranged next to a gas mask.

For more information: http://www.visapourlimage.com/exhibition/6610.do

To see more images from the story: http://www.gerdludwig.com/recent-work/chernobyl-nuclear-tourist

"The Long Shadow of Chernobyl" iPad app: https://itunes.apple.com/app/the-long-shadow-of-chernobyl/id484752718