My grandfather Igor, who unfortunately I did not have a chance to see, was in Chernobyl in 1986 as an engineer and liquidator of the accident. After receiving large doses of radiation, he died of blood cancer, leaving my grandmother Mila alone in a one-room apartment quartet, which was received as a reward for my grandfather’s work. My grandmother, however, had two close friends Valya and Ira, who worked together with Mila and Igor in the same RosAtom Ministry and who also connected their fate to tragedy. In Chernobyl, Valya worked for three months as a secretary, Ira went with her husband only for a few weeks. All three women in the result received the status of "Chernobyl Widows", irreparable health consequences, painful memories.
The accident at the Chernobyl NPP is a disease that has poisoned entire generations. The people who lived through all this horror, who took part in the liquidation, who saw everything in real life, have been forgotten and abandoned like blunders in history. All experienced memories have been incorporated into their way of life, into their typical one-room apartments. This work explores the intersection of present and past, the indistinguishable consequences of the catastrophe and the permanence of the place.
The installation is an image of a typical Khrushchev apartment in which Ira, Mila and Valya still live. Each heroine has her own room, which represents her perceptions of the past and today.
My grandfather Igor, who unfortunately I did not have a chance to see, was in Chernobyl in 1986 as an engineer and liquidator of the accident. After receiving large doses of radiation, he died of blood cancer, leaving my grandmother Mila alone in a one-room apartment quartet, which was received as a reward for my grandfather’s work. My grandmother, however, had two close friends Valya and Ira, who worked together with Mila and Igor in the same RosAtom Ministry and who also connected their fate to tragedy. In Chernobyl, Valya worked for three months as a secretary, Ira went with her husband only for a few weeks. All three women in the result received the status of "Chernobyl Widows", irreparable health consequences, painful memories.
The accident at the Chernobyl NPP is a disease that has poisoned entire generations. The people who lived through all this horror, who took part in the liquidation, who saw everything in real life, have been forgotten and abandoned like blunders in history. All experienced memories have been incorporated into their way of life, into their typical one-room apartments. This work explores the intersection of present and past, the indistinguishable consequences of the catastrophe and the permanence of the place.
The installation is an image of a typical Khrushchev apartment in which Ira, Mila and Valya still live. Each heroine has her own room, which represents her perceptions of the past and today.
Serafima Bresler is an artist and researcher from Russian working in Hamburg and Berlin.
Bresler works trace the aftermath of the Chernobyl catastrophe and disinformation in Soviet and post-countries. She often uses the lens of her personal family archive. Her artistic practice takes a form of monumental installation using a variety of printmaking techniques and .
After the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the research on the nuclear catastrophe and the topic of home take on new power and context. Everything said before has become closer, but due to the migration of the artist and her family, distance is also created and awareness of what is happening emerges through today’s online resources and analysis of the past. In this way, the research also began to address the visibility of catastrophes and how they can remain invisible despite their proximity.
She graduated from the Hamburg University of Fine Arts (HFBK) in 2024 with a degree in Time-Related Media and received her BA in Illustration from the British Higher School of Art & Design (BHSAD) in Moscow in 2020. In 2024 she was awarded the DAAD prize and in 2023 she received the merit scholarship for international students from the Hamburg Ministry of Science, Research, Equality and Districts. Her work has been exhibited at Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven (DE), De Balie, Amsterdam (NL), Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin (DE), Pushkin House, London (UK) and others.
Since 2022, Bresler is co-founder of the Artworkshop HH project, which supports children through free art workshops from families facing refugee crisis.
Last interview: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/08/11/i-always-find-myself-returning-to-chernobyl-artist-serafima-bresler-a90160
