BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

07/07/2006

Exhibit on Belarus shows proud people in desperate straits

By RONALD ZAJAC

Staff Writer

The signature shot in Ottawa photographer Michelle Valberg's exhibit on Belarus shows a woman with tears in her eyes.

One might think she is aged, but in fact, decades of post-Chernobyl radiation, poverty and malnutrition have made her look older than her true years.

And she is crying, says Valberg, because she does not know who will care for her 32-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, after she is gone.

Hers is one of the faces of Belarus that area residents can see next week when Valberg's exhibit opens at the Brockville Museum.

In The Shadow of Silence: 20 Years After Chernobyl was to open on Monday, but museum director Bonnie Burke said Thursday the exhibit was still being set up.

"They're just putting the finishing touches today," she said, describing Valberg's images as "haunting."

It is now slated to open Monday and run until November 6.

The museum is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. through 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.

The exhibit offers insight into the lives and conditions of the people helped by the Brockville-based Canadian Aid for Chernobyl (CAC).

Valberg, 41, joined the charity's most recent delegation to Belarus's Chausy region, in March and April, along with her friend, Debbie O'Brien, daughter of Brockville philanthropists Don and Shirley Green and the director of the Greens' charitable foundation.

Valberg took more than 3,200 photos of the area and 32 of them make up her exhibit.

"I never have experienced anything like what I did in March," she said.

Chausy is an impoverished area of Belarus (which is itself an impoverished former Soviet republic) located in the path of the deadly radiation caused by the 1986 disaster at a nuclear station in Chernobyl, Ukraine. CAC has been helping people in the region since the late 1990s.

CAC humanitarian aid director Dave Shaw described most of the pictures as "expressions of the people living in despair."

But there's more to the story than despair, notes O'Brien, 48.

"This is not a population in a country who feel sorry for themselves. It's anything but that," said O'Brien. "When you really look at them, you do see hope and Canadian Aid for Chernobyl has provided them with that."

Nevertheless, notes Valberg, there is no doubt Chausy-area residents live in desperate straits.

"You have that unbelievable sense of: 'I cannot believe these people live in these deplorable conditions,'" said Valberg, recalling homes with no heat or running water, decrepit floors, walls and ceilings and an indescribable stench.

In her career, Valberg has taken pictures of Princess Diana and the Dalai Lama. She shot all her Chausy images without a flash, using natural light. That likely made the process less intrusive and might explain why the people in her pictures didn't really pay attention to her as she was shooting, she said.

Charitable causes, and the ability to use her photography to give those causes a face, have always been important to Valberg.

Both her self-published books, Look Beyond... The Faces and Stories of People with HIV/AIDS and Dare to Dream... A Celebration of Canadian Women, which became a national bestseller after selling more than 3,000 hardcover copies, have raised money for Ottawa-based charities.

But the trip to Chausy gave Valberg a chance to be involved in a charitable project hands-on.

"To be able to hand-deliver aid with your own hands was just a remarkable experience," said Valberg.

The exhibit will also help raise awareness of the Belarusian people's plight, she said.

That, too, is crucial, added O'Brien, noting the people of Chausy are heartened that, through CAC, Canadians are paying attention to their suffering.

"Their tragedy hasn't been forgotten," said O'Brien. "Brockville has to be proud of that."

City hall reporter Ronald Zajac writes in this space every second Friday. He can be reached at 613-342-4441, ext. 257, or by e-mail at ronz@recorder.ca.

Source:

http://newsfeed.recorder.ca/cgi-bin/LiveIQue.acgi$rec=18597