Yana Kononova

Ukrainian. Photographies X BredaPhoto: Altered sites in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine

Technical warfare is the most unprecedented and egregious depredation. Poetess Joyelle McSweeney introduced the concept of the Necropastoral as a political-aesthetic zone where mankind’s depredations cannot be divorced from an experience of poisoned and aberrant nature. Drawing from this sombre source, in Radiations of War, the political potential of devastated, looted, war-torn landscapes – the areas of decomposition, contamination, and decay – lies in challenging common notions of justice and retribution in emitting their own tainted brilliance. It is about making the fact of their devastation spectacularly and unequivocally visible, thus repeating as pageantry the act of brutality on their own terms.