Bojan Radovič – Hiroshima Project

4. 3. – 22. 3. 2019.

photo: Maša Bajc

The scenes from Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs in August 1945 passed across television screen countless times, ingraining into the collective memory of the viewers the scenes of one of the most horrifying and destructive catastrophes of the 20th century. An event of such proportions led to the end of the war in that part of the world. It also caused a deep division between a world before and after war, obligating human society to interpret and represent that historic trauma in the future.

Photography holds a significant role not only in direct recording of dramatic events that become “real” through the act of being photographed, thus entering the collective consciousness. In a contemporary context, thanks to the time distance, using the medium of photography allows us to approach traumatic experiences from the past in a completely new way, thus achieving the possibility of representing and interpreting them again.

The new work of the Slovenian photographer Bojan Radovič, Hiroshima Project, made while he resided in Japan, follows that precise path: the author entangles the scenes of the daily hyper-capitalist Japanese society with the ruins caused by the bombing. Radovič creates an emotionally strong and complex series of photographs which clearly displays a conflict between the past and the present, or the memory of destruction and modern life. Documentary photographs of the so-called street aesthetic are complemented by the cycle Hibakujumoku. In doing that, Radovič chooses a more experimental approach, where he uses a prepared portable scanner to research the structure of the trees that lived through the blast of the atomic bomb, thus questioning the entire material world, as well as the nature of the photographic media.

Bojan Radovič (1960) graduated at the Swansea College of Art, University of Wales. One of the leading figures in Slovenian photography; in addition to his work as a photographer, Radovič is involved in curating and publishing, and has opened photo gallery. In his work he investigates in detail both contemporary society and art, using carefully chosen concepts and a gaze unburdened by prejudice.

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