From sunrise to sunset I read aloud an account of the 1986 meltdown at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. It provided an opportunity for conversations with the audience about related topics including the war in Ukraine, the climate crisis, and nuclear power.
In early April of 2022 I traveled to Haverford College, outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to participate with four other women in the On Duration 2022 Mellon Symposium, organized by performance artist and scholar Raegan Truax. In addition to open sessions where we discussed and demonstrated aspects of our practice, we also presented public durational performances on the campus, with a concluding roundtable discussion about the works.
I did not come with a plan of what I would do for a performance, since I wanted to see the campus in person. But at the last minute I decided to bring a book detailing, step by step, the 1986 nuclear reactor meltdown at Chornobyl. I have had the book for several years, but never found time to read it. The recent reports of Russian soldiers digging in the most contaminated area of the site, oblivious to its history, made me think of it again. I was particularly interested in learning how the government officials in the USSR handled the aftermath, including what information they divulged or did not divulge to their citizens and to the world.
Haverford is a rural college, with a lovely campus, including an arboretum and a farm, fields and forests, and old brick buildings around carefully tended greens. Being there made me think about the complexities of living in idyllic and peaceful places while disasters are happening elsewhere. Of course the US has ignored Putin’s previous invasions of Ukraine and various other countries for years, but finally this one really is in our news. And so people here are trying to (re?)learn the history of Eastern Europe.
For my performance I decided to read the book on the Chornobyl meltdown out loud. I had a chair that I carried to different parts of the campus throughout the day. I read from sunrise to sunset – using that light by which to read, for 12 hours and 55 minutes. I began by sitting in an open field at the entrance to the college, then moved to different locations along a nature trail, to a covered passageway between academic buildings, to inside the Visual Culture, Arts and Media (VCAM) center, to finally sit under a canopy in front of Founders Hall. The day was cold and rainy, with two torrential downpours with thunder and lightning, but I was prepared with a large umbrella, rubber boots, and enough layers of warm clothing.
I used the performance as an opportunity to talk with people about Russia’s war on Ukraine; about how we learn history, including Chornobyl and Three Mile Island; about the climate crisis and the renewed interest in nuclear power despite the still unsolved issues of how to deal with nuclear waste. And we talked about living in safety while friends are in the midst of crisis and war.
I haven’t had conversations with that many strangers in more than two years, and it was a pleasure to talk with so many different people. I was relieved that even though I haven’t had many opportunities to perform during the pandemic, I came up with a performance that felt timely. And I finally took the time to read the book, Midnight in Chernobyl, by Adam Higgenbotham, that I have had since it was published in 2019.
