Project synopsis: With this series of landscapes I attempt to simultaneously undermine and enrich received notions and representations about Greece, while also reconnecting, through photography, with my country of origin. These photos were taken over several years, during a number of short visits to Greece.
Project statement:
For most people, the idea of Greece evokes either images of sunny beaches and picturesque whitewashed villages, or, more recently, tragic images of refugees trying to cross over to Europe and sometimes losing their lives in the process. With this project, my aim has been to deconstruct and undermine, but also expand and enrich, the store of visual representations associated with my country of birth in our collective imagination. I attempted to capture an aspect of Greece's landscape that is very far removed from the typical picture-postcard aesthetic usually associated with the country, and this is one of the reasons I have gravitated toward foggy, mountainous, and snowy vistas in many of these photos. I also wanted to evoke what I think of as the often improvised, play-it-by ear character of the country: the somewhat laissez-faire attitude of Greeks toward their lived environment, which gives rise to an interesting and delicate interplay and inter-permeability between public and private spaces in Greece. There is something deeply sad and surreal "“ and sometimes even almost cruel (but at other times very tender) "“ about these traces of human presence in the middle of nowhere, and the multiple and often implicit layers of interconnection between people and the natural environment is part of what I have tried to capture.
