Picture Post #41 The Aesthetics of Destruction

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be

neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

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Posted by Martin Cohen

 

 

Herald Weekly image of a store in Fukushima sometime after the nuclear reactor there partially exploded. 

 

I think the next Picture Post should be from Ukraine, where there are so many scenes of urban destruction that are at once both tragic and appalling – yet also somehow (like this scene) somehow rather calming. These are postcards from a post-apocalyptic future, words of chaos that humanity can only briefly put off.

But about this scene, in particular, which has the quality of a paper seascape, the waves created by the numerous documents and papers thrown onto the floor. Or, writing just after Christmas, it might remind some people of the detritus left after an extravagant present–giving ceremony where the parcels and wrapping paper are all that remain. 

It is not on a huge scale, this destruction, we could imagine being tasked with cleaning it up. But it’s not the kind of mess that we come across every day either.

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