Into the Half Life by Eddo Hartmann

Kazakhstan is the largest country in Central Asia and until 1991 it was an important republic within the Soviet Union. This vast area is the birthplace of today’s space travel, and also of the international arms race. In the late 1940s, in utmost secrecy, parts of this steppe were turned into a vast open-air laboratory, which for decades formed the backdrop to the most destructive nuclear tests ever held on the surface of the planet. No care or consideration was given to the population.

This body of work documents both the immense, ravaged landscape and the people who still live among the ruins and have to deal with their deadly history. Some of them come together to scour the land for old pipes and cables, or to find steel in old military installations, their lives marked by poverty and alcoholism.