The Most Beautiful Nuclear Power Plants in Europe is a photo series that examines power stations in landscape from an aesthetic point of view. The main standpoint of this project is the relationship between human and nature, and the style is based on repetition. The contrast between the beautiful sceneries and the pompous absurdity of the power plant architecture rising from the landscape creates some visible tension in the images, not to mention industrial romanticism.
Due to the risks, the power plants are not built in direct contact with large centres of population but within a “compromise distance”. However, in densely populated Western and Central Europe this means that the stations are located on an inhabited and farmed rural area, in scenic and idyllic places. For security measures most often there should be not permanent habitation in the closest proximity of the plants, but often there may be a natural park or a nature reserve. For the people living in the vicinity the plants often have become invisible, whereas for the people visiting the area a plant is absurdly visible – often a surprising, scary or a fascinating sight sticking out of the environment.
The prevention of climate change forces us to search for new ways of producing energy with as little carbon dioxide emissions as possible. In Finland the third reactor of Olkiluoto nuclear power plant is under construction for 11 years now and there are intentions of constructing a new station in Pyhäjoki, Northern Finland. Germany, for instance, has decided to end the use of nuclear power by the year 2022, rushing the closure after the Fukushima accident in Japan. As other countries seem to abandon the atomic era, Finland, France and Slovakia are going against the current and currently the only European countries to construct more nuclear power.
Next exhibition: MUU Gallery in Helsinki, October 7 – November 6, 2016.
Subzero 