The Chernobyl Herbarium: Fragments of an Exploded Consciousness (2nd edition)

by Michael Marder and Anaïs Tondeur

We entrust readers with forty fragments of reflections, meditations, recollections, and images — one for each year that has passed since the explosion that rocked and destroyed a part of the Chernobyl nuclear power station in April 1986. The aesthetic visions, thoughts, and experiences that have made their way into this book hover in a grey region between the singular and self-enclosed, on the one hand, and the generally applicable and universal, on the other. Through words and images, we wish to contribute our humble share to a collaborative grappling with the event of Chernobyl. Unthinkable and unrepresentable as it is, we insist on the need to reflect upon, signify, and symbolize it, taking stock of the consciousness it fragmented and, perhaps, cultivating another, more environmentally attuned way of living.

Author Bios

Michael Marder is IKERBASQUE Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz. His most recent books include The Phoenix Complex (2023), Time Is a Plant (2023), with Edward S. Casey, Plants in Place (2024), Eco-Freud (2025), Metamorphoses Reimagined (2025), with Anais Tondeur, Fiori di fuoco (2025), and Of Joints and Other Articulations (2026). More information at http://michaelmarder.org

Anaïs Tondeur develops image-based investigations as anthropological tools, attending to the invisible materialities of air, climate, plants and soil. Recipient of the Grand Prix RPBB (2024), the Prix Photographie et Sciences – Résidence 1+2 (2023), the Art of Change 21 Prize (2021) and an Honorary Mention at Ars Electronica (2019), she catches images at the interstices of bodies and environments. Her work has been shown internationally, including at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Centre Pompidou, MAMAC, Kröller-Müller Museum, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Kunst Haus Wien, Spencer Art Museum and Nam June Paik Art Center, among others. See more of her work at http://www.anais-tondeur.com/.